For those of us who install or update our operating systems it is very easy to accidentally misplace your product key, or lose the piece of paper that you may have the key written down on.
Luckily there is a way of recovering your Windows key before you need to do a big system pack update or, just want to have it on file. This software is free and very easy to use.
Go to WinKeyFinder.com and download the Simple Keyfinder. It is a very small 38k zip file. The product information says it works with Windows 2000, 2003, XP, and Vista, but I tested it in Windows 7 and it worked like a charm.
Double-click the zip file you just downloaded and choose extract all files at the top of the menu.
In the menu that appears, browse to choose a place for Simple Keyfinder to extract, then click extract at the bottom right off the window. Make sure the box is checked next to Show extracted files when complete.
A new window will appear listing the contents of the unzipped file. Double-click SimpleKey_Finder. If windows gives you a warning screen, click run.
This will open a window telling you your product key.
And there you go!