Product Reviews

Upgrading to a new PC can be tricky. Once you've worked out how to copy all your data to your new PC, you have the problem of reinstalling all your software. This could prove difficult if you have lost the licence keys. Rather than buying everything again, from your favourite utilities to Windows itself, you can use NsaSoft's Product Key Explorer.

This utility searches your PC and displays all the product keys it can find. You can then save or print them, ready to enter them again when you install the software on your new PC. Just remember to stay legal. Transferring software that was

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preinstalled on your old PC may contravene the licence agreement, and you will probably need to reactivate Windows.

Product Key Explorer did well on our test PC, extracting the licence keys for most of our commonly used software. It supports a comprehensive list of applications including Windows Vista, Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop and various Macromedia (now Adobe) products. Before you buy, though, it's worth looking at the website to make sure the product you need a licence key for is listed.

For a program that does just one thing, Product Key Explorer has some unexpected uses. If you're a system administrator, for example, it enables you to audit your users' computers to find out which software is installed on which machines. Simply press the Select Computers button, choose the machine you're interested in and enter an administrator username and password. This can also show you which users have installed their own licensed software, which is useful for tracking what's installed where.

If you've shelled out a lot for an application but have since lost the product key, this utility could well save you having to buy a brand new copy for your new PC.