Help needed to find product key for Photoshop CS3

JaseUK · 16 May 2010 at 11:49

Hi Guys,

I have an installation of photoshop CS3 on an unbootable windows xp installation and I need to retrieve the product key from it.

I have used JellyBean Keyfinder and loaded the registry hive from the damaged hard drive where CS3 is installed but sadly jellybean doesnt retrieve Photoshop CS3 product keys only Photoshop 7.

Does anyone know how I can find the product key please?

Derek W · 16 May 2010 at 12:28

JaseUK said:
Does anyone know how I can find the product key please?

on the box for CS3

JaseUK · 16 May 2010 at 12:30

Derek W said:
on the box for CS3

The box has long disappeared, I'm afraid

robinbredin · 16 May 2010 at 16:15

Have you tried Belarc Advisor.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

JaseUK · 17 May 2010 at 11:47

robinbredin said:
Have you tried Belarc Advisor.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

I gave belarc a try and its unable to find the product key and I'm thinking it can only do it if you are booted into windows on the drive its installed on.

I read somewhere that CS3 does not install the product key into the registry hence the reason I couldnt find it by importing the hive registry from the broken hdd.

The only thing I can think of now is to attempt to clone the damaged hdd and boot into windows, I am assuming acronis will do this?

PistolPete · 17 May 2010 at 12:11

Depends on why the disk is unbootable.

If it's a damaged HDD, then you might be able to repair the files on the damaged part of the drive after cloning - it's a try it and see siuation. If it's a damaged install, then you would probably have as much luck repairing the original disk as you would a clone.