Microsoft Outlook Professional Technology Support

Tim Fisher has 30 years professional technology support experience.

He writes troubleshooting content and is the General Manager of Lifewire.

Most software programs require a product key as part of the installation process, including all recent versions of Microsoft Office.

If youve lost your Microsoft Office product key, youll need to find it before you can reinstall the software suite.

Microsoft Office product keys are encrypted inside the Windows Registry, so searching for them manually is nearly impossible.

Youll find a string of numbers once you locate the correct registry key, but what youll find is encrypted text, not a working Office product key you can enter.

Fortunately, programs called key finders do the finding and decrypting for you, giving you your valid, paid-for Office product key that missing puzzle piece so you can successfully reinstall the program.

Microsoft Outlook Free Product Keys

As often as you may come across free product keys for Office, or key generator programs, neither are good ways to go about this.

The Microsoft Office 2019, 2016, and 2013 product key situation is unique compared to older versions of Office (below).

Unfortunately for us, only the last five characters of the 25-character Office 2019, Office 2016, or Office 2013 product key is stored on your computer, making a product key finder pretty much useless in this case.

I know, right away Im going back on some of the stuff I said above For whatever reason, Microsoft completely changed how they handled product keys with these newer versions of MS Office.

Of course, this unfortunate fact doesnt change the reality that you still need that product key to reinstall either version.

Its not all bad news that key finder programs are no longer helpful with these versions of Office.

In fact, the new way that Microsoft is handling Office keys might not be such a bad thing after all.

Like all versions of Office, Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft Office 2007 both require a unique product key during the installation process.

If youre sure that you no longer have the physical product key for your version of Microsoft Office, or youve lost or deleted the email receipt that included the product key in it, you might, as you read in the introduction above, be able to extract the key from the registry using a key finder tool.

LicenseCrawler, the key finder program we recommend for Office 2010 2007 product keys in that tutorial, will find your product key in just seconds.

Older versions of Microsoft Office, like Office 2003 (2003), Office XP (2001), Office 2000 (1999), and Office 97 (1996) all also require product keys during installation.

Considering how old some of these versions of Microsoft Office are, itd be surprising if anyone still has the product key around.

Microsoft Outlook For Mac License