March 29, 2024, 11:23:02 AM

Author Topic: Product Key is reported wrong in Windows 8, but MS licensing last 5 is correct.  (Read 12047 times)

Davidh

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The product key reported is not the same used. However there is a message saying that "MS Licensing reports last 5 as XXXX" and those are correct.
I noticed this with Windows 8 machines, but some of the Windows 7 have the same message.
Is there a workaround for this?

Komodo Support

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Hi David.  Last year users reported the keys we were retrieving weren't correct, so after some research, we found that the key in the registry didn't match the one reported by Microsoft's key reporting system.  So now, every time we decode Windows or Office keys from the registry, we compare the last 5 characters to MS's key API and let the user know if they don't match.

At this time there's nothing we can do about showing the full key in these situations and most of our competitors would simply display the "wrong" key from the registry, with no warning whatsoever.

We believe, in these cases, the true key is stored in a special file on the hard drive no one has been able to decrypt yet, and that the one stored in the registry may have been the original key, then changed later by the OEM of the PC.

We hope that explains everything.  Let us know if you have any other questions.

Komodo Support

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We wanted to let you know we did find out that we don't seem to be reading Win8 keys correctly after all and we are working on a solution now.  This may also relate to 2013 keys.  Apparently the method of storage has changed on these in some instances.

Thank you for bringing this to our attention.