
Otherwise, the error A required privilege is not held by the client or similar when loading the hive. You may need to run some of the following utilities as administrator. However, the KeyFinder and ExtPassword! utilities discussed below requires the original directory structure to be intact in the offline drive it doesn’t allow you to point to a single file or directory location. You may either connect the old hard disk drive as a slave to another computer or copy only the SOFTWARE hive to a USB drive.

This post introduces some third-party utilities that can get the product keys offline (for Windows, Office, and other products) by loading the SOFTWARE registry hive on a mounted hard disk or other sources.īefore proceeding, please note that this article assumes you have a copy of your SOFTWARE registry hive from your dead Windows installation.
