The Magical Jelly Bean Key Finder is a nice little freeware utility for when you need to extract software keys from your registry. There’s actually two versions of the software, a free version and an advanced premium product, but for my needs I’ve never needed anything more than the free one.
The free version offers support for over three hundred different software products, although I couldn’t find a list of them anywhere. The most important thing for most of us is that it will work on Windows operating systems from Windows 95 through Windows 7 and every version in between. It also works on any version of Microsoft Office I’ve ever had installed too.
I’ve typically used the key finder for retrieving Windows keys at work if I’ve temporarily misplaced our volume license key or want to install Office on a server without going through the standard process (shhhh) of requesting an SCCM push from the Assets department. I figure when they need to run reports to find out how many software installations there are of a specific product, they can just use SCCM again anyways, duh!
The Magical Jelly Bean installs quick, but be sure to select the Custom Installation and make sure all the available options are unchecked, otherwise you’ll be installing the AVG tool bar and may end up changing your search and browser settings. I have nothing against monetizing your products with sponsors, but this is one of them I don’t really like. Ever wonder why your parents have seven different tool bars installed? It’s because of this kind of advertising trickery that prays on our inattentiveness when installing new software.
Once it’s installed, simply launch the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder and a box will pop up listing all of the supported software and the corresponding product keys.
