Finding windows 7 and office keys WITHOUT software

Question

I am currently working on an application which will audit computers, and one of the things that it is mandatory for this app to achieve is to get the license key from the install of OEM windows and Retail Office, in order to retain this information for future purposes, such as re-installation and move from one machine to another (this part is more for office).

The requirement here is specifically NOT to use any apps that already find keys, this is a BIG no no for the project.

The goal is to have a comprehensive audit of the user's PC: hardware info, software installed, user account name, pc name, domain currently used, workgroup, antivirus used, running processes, startup processes, and LICENSE KEYS. And it has to be custom tailored for this specific purpose, so retail apps are instantly out of the question.

Now I am very confident I can do everything myself. Frankly, I already did 50% of this. Where I am stuck is finding where the license keys are stored within windows.. It has been eluding me for a week now.. Internet searching only refers me to sites that offer the easy and lazy option of using a pre-made key finder.

Initially I thought that these would be somehow squirreled away in the registry, but a plaintext search of my own personal Office key returned a great big nothing. Which leaves me to wonder if these keys are stored in the registry, are they perhaps in there as HEX? Or encrypted?

Or if not, where could they be stored?

Answer 1

The literally used keys are not stored on the computer.

However the registry contains a value which is based on the original key. There is software (which you stated is "a big no no") which you can use to calculate the original key based on these values.

If you want to do this yourself then you might want to take a look at bytes 34 through 42 from HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\Current Version\DigitalProductId (for windows). Office uses something similar.