
This problem is mostly reported with Dell computers. Note: If you bought your computer with an operating system preinstalled, then you may find the Windows product key appeared in ProduKey utility is different from the product key on your Windows CD. This utility can be useful if you lost the product key to Windows or Office, and you want to reinstall it on your computer. It can magically find the operating system key, plus keys for various Microsoft Office products, Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, and more. Once it runs, it will display all the product keys it can find on the computer. To start using it, simply extract the files to any folder you like, and run the executable file. ProduKey doesn’t requite any installation process or additional DLLs.

Another cool thing about this tool is that you can obtain the required information not only for your current running operating system, but also for remote computers on your network by using command-line options.

Just download it to your desired location and execute it. It’s called ProduKey, and it’s written by Nir Sofer. ProduKey is a small and fully portable utility, meaning it does not require any installation. Here comes one of the most useful freeware tools to the rescue.

So how do you obtain the needed product key? If you’re lucky, you might find the product key for the installed version of Windows as a sticker or on the installation media itself. But obviously, there are times where the product key can’t be located.

In this article, I’ll walk you through on how to recover the product key in Windows 10 and Windows Server 2012 R2. Without having this key handy, you won’t be able to perform an installation or upgrade, and who can remember that key by heart? No human that I know. Undoubtedly, there will be times where you’ll need to obtain the operating system product key. Working with computers as an IT professional means that you sometimes need to deal with license issues.
