missing product id

[Wayne]

I have to reinstall Office 97 SBE back onto my reformatted
hard drive. I lost the info for all of the product id #'s that
are needed (a 20 digit code). How can I get the this info.
Thank you in advance,
Wayne

 

[JoAnn Paules]

It should be on a sticker or it might have been on the hologrammed
certification of authenticity. (Something keeps telling me 20 digits
indicates OEM but for Office 97, I could be wrong.)

 

[Mary Sauer]

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/productkeysactivation/gr/winkeyfinder.htm

 

[Another Brian]

I have to reinstall Office 97 SBE back onto my reformatted
hard drive. I lost the info for all of the product id #'s that
are needed (a 20 digit code). How can I get the this info.
Thank you in advance,
Wayne

If you haven't yet reformatted the hard drive, or in other words, you
still have an installed version of Office, you can use a tool line
WinKeyFinder (see Mary's post) or Belarc Advisor
(http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html) to get back the product key
that you used.

Unfortunately, once you've reformatted the drive, you've lost the
ability to retrieve the key. You'll either need to find the key, or
try finding a copy on eBay that you can purchase.

Incidentally, the Office 97 product ID is 20 digits long and is not
used during the installation. The product key is 11 digits long and is
what you use when installing Office 97. (I'm looking at two old Office
97 standard and pro CD cases that I have sitting around as I type
this.)

Brian

 

[JoAnn Paules]

I would assume that the formatting is a done deal.

 

[LVTravel]

If you have lost the key you may try using all 1s then all 2s then all 3s
until it successfully takes the key. Make sure the second section of 3
characters is OEM however. It works for some of MSs earlier versions of
office (even Publisher 98) Since it doesn't have to be activated to update
to SP2b there is no issue.