[Misc] Retrieving your Product Key from the Registry
Posted: Tue Aug 01, 2006 7:56 am
OK. To my knowledge, I'm not revealing anything super duper secret, or at least not anything that could get me in legal trouble. I am going to reveal how to go from this:
to this:
R07FL-Z0MF6-L4S3R-1SV3R-Y1337 (that's supposed to represent your serial key thingy)
You will need:
NOTE: This should also work with the "DigitalProductID" of other microsoft products.
If this doesn't work for you, triple, or even quadruple check everything you've done. If it turns out I made an error in the tutorial, or left out a step, I'll fix it.
2 don'ts
1)Don't use online converters. They tend to not like the length of the hex string, and will give you an inaccurate base 24 string.
2)If you have trouble, do NOT post any of the strings here. The info above could be used to steal your key. And while it is somewhat unlikely, it is possible that microsoft could add your key to some invalid list or something.
to this:
R07FL-Z0MF6-L4S3R-1SV3R-Y1337 (that's supposed to represent your serial key thingy)
You will need:
- At least half a brain
- Basic Regedit knowledge
- A calculator capable of converting hexadecimal to base-24.(I recommend Haxial Calculator. Don't attempt to convert it by hand. You will get a severe headache. I know this from experience)
- Open the Registry Editor. (start-Run, and enter regedit)
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Microsoft Games\Halo CE (or Halo)
- Go to File-Export, and save it to your desktop(or wherever)
- Right click the .reg file, and choose edit. If edit isn't an option on your right-click menu, you can rename it to a .txt, or open it in notepad however you like.
- Copy and paste these values(3rd row, 10th byte through 24th byte I believe) into a new text document:
!!! I have tampered with the numbers here, so I don't have to worry about somebody stealing my key !!! - You should now have something like this:
- Reverse the order of the bytes:
- Open up Haxial Calculator, and go here:
- Enter your radixes, bases, whatever you want to call them(16 on the left, 24 on the right), then paste the hex string:
(This isn't your product key) - You should currently have something like this:
- Now here comes the part that makes me feel 1337
After comparing a few keys(from various MS products), I noticed something:
They only contain the following 24 characters:
BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789
Final Step:
Take your base 24 string, and replace the characters like this
Final Result:
!!!As I said at the beginning, I tampered with the numbers in the registry export before taking the screenshot. This should work fine for your serial, but the serial shown here is invalid.
NOTE: This should also work with the "DigitalProductID" of other microsoft products.
If this doesn't work for you, triple, or even quadruple check everything you've done. If it turns out I made an error in the tutorial, or left out a step, I'll fix it.
2 don'ts
1)Don't use online converters. They tend to not like the length of the hex string, and will give you an inaccurate base 24 string.
2)If you have trouble, do NOT post any of the strings here. The info above could be used to steal your key. And while it is somewhat unlikely, it is possible that microsoft could add your key to some invalid list or something.
)