How to change your Office install registration code
Have you ever installed Office, only to try and activate it and find out you’ve used all your “activation" options? I trash and burn my laptop hard drive all the time. There is nothing, I mean nothing, more refreshing than starting with a clean install and reloading. Well, I did it again today, only to find out that my activation codes wouldn’t work because I’d activated too many times. Since I’m both a TechNet and MSDN subscriber, I have other codes. So, options? Yes, I could completely uninstall Office and reinstall with a new code. No, that isn’t a good option. It takes too long to install/uninstall/install. So, what do you do? Change the product ID in the registry so that you can enter your new keys. Here’s how.
Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\, and look for the version you have installed. If you’re running Office 2007, it will be in 12.0. Once you’re there, scroll to the Registration key and there should be several subfolders listed that look like:
If you have multiple entries like I did, you need to find the product associated with each key. So, click the first key and in the right pane, and scroll to productname:
OK, once you’ve identifed the right key, scroll up in the right pane and find the “DigitalProductID” and the “ProductID”. Delete both keys (you may want to export the key first). If the app is running, make sure the app is closed first. Exit the registry editor, then relaunch your application. You should be prompted for a new product/activation key. That’s all there is to it, and it saves time.