Does anyone know if the product key actually gets listed in the registry for Windows XP? My roommate and I have been looking for it because he is a computer science major and needs to see if he can find it in his registry, but we have not had any success. We found the product id, but need the product key. I have a program that will tell you what your product key is, but I need to know where it is actually listed in the registry -- if it actually is. Thanks for any help.

Well I don't think the actual product key is stored in the registry, especially since the product ID is the key plus some transformation.

There's also a way to change which product key was used for activation, but it doesn't let you see the original one, so I doubt you'd be interested in that.

Windows 98 did show actual product key in registry, but im afraid that XP does not... it used to be in HKLM/Software/Windows/CurrenVersion/Product Key

Windows XP storing product key encrypted