Lost Windows 7 key and can't login

Cheetah Designs

Cheetah Designs

Cheetah Designs

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Joined
10 Jul 2006
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I have a laptop which has a Windows 7 COA on the bottom but the numbers have rubbed off. I'd like to reinstall windows but I don't have the key.

To make matters worse, I don't know the credentials to login to the existing installation either.

Is there anything that I can run to get the Windows 7 key off so I can do a reinstall?
 
If you can get your hands on a copy of Hiren's you could boot into the windows environment and use one of the the key finders to grab the windows key or one of the password tools to get logged into the installed OS.
 
Once you've burned the disk or created a usb pen, boot into the Hiren's interface and select "mini xp" from there you can access all of the utils in Hiren's and either locate the product key or change the password on the installed OS.
 
Assuming your existing Win7 installation is actually still bootable, use this to clear the login password, then boot into Windows and use Belarc Adviser or Magic Jelly Bean to pull out the product key.

You could also use Advanced Tokens Manager to backup/restore the activation data - it has some issues with Windows 8.1, but IIRC it works fine with Win7.

edit: sorry I didn't read properly, scratch that, you'll still run into the HDMI drivers problem with Pogostick. The other utilities should work though, assuming you can actually get to load Windows as per KIA's link.
 
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Another option is to stick the hard drive in another computer and use Magic Jelly Bean which can find a key if you point it to the WINDOWS directory.
 
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