How to change the Product Key in Office 2007, Office 2003 and Office XP.
Changing the Product Key in Office 2007 isn’t as easy as with Office 2010.
In effect what you have to do is remove the existing Office 2007 software registration info and force Office 2007 to ask you again for the Product Key.
Close all Office 2007 programs.
Go to the Windows Registry Editor – Start, Run, type regedit to start it.
Navigate down to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftOffice12.0Registration
Backup: you should make a backup of the ‘Registration’ section of the registry before making any changes. Right-click on the ‘Registration’ entry and click Export. Save the details to a ‘ .reg’ file in case you need them later.
There will be one or more subkeys under ‘Registration’ – one for each Office product you have installed. Most people will have only one subkey for their Office 2007 bundle (Home and Student, Enterprise, Professional etc).
Look in each Registration subkey and the ‘ProductName’ key which has a human name for the subkey.
For example the subkey …Registration{91120000-002E-0000-0000-0000000FF1CE} has a ProductName ‘Microsoft Office Ultimate 2007’.
Once you’ve found the right product and subkey – find and delete the following registry entries in the subkey:
- DigitalProductID
- ProductID
Open an Office 2007 program. When you do, the software will detect the missing registration information and prompt you to replace it. It’s the same process as the original Office 2007 setup.
Make sure the new Product Key is for the same Office 2007 product bundle as you have installed.
After entering a Product Key, click Continue then ‘Install Now’ and allow a few minutes for the configuration and registration to be reset.
Then you can activate Office 2007 to finalize the registration.
If you are requesting the Office 2010 Technology Guarantee you’ll need the Product ID that’s generated during software activation. In Word 2007, click the Office button on top left then ‘Word Options’, Resources and About:
The Product ID is usually an all-digit code eg 12345-678-0912345-67890 (we’ve removed our Product ID from the image). It’s shown on the About screen of each Office 2007 program.
Office 2003 and Office XP
You can use the same technique for Office 2003 or Office XP – the only change is the version number in the registry location.
For Office 2003 go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftOffice11.0Registration
For Office XP go to
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftOffice10.0Registration
64-bit systems
The same process also applies to Microsoft Office on on 64-bit Windows, except the registry location is slightly different – adding a /Wow6432Node subkey.
Office 2007:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432Node
MicrosoftOffice12.0Registration
Office 2003:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432Node
MicrosoftOffice11.0Registration
Office XP:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432Node
MicrosoftOffice10.0Registration
See Also
- Technology Guarantee delay woes
- Time running out for ‘free’ Office 2010
- Saving on Office 2010 by getting Office 2007 now
- Office 2010 – change the Product Key
- Installing Office 2010 64-bit
- Do Office 2007 version upgrades really qualify for Office 2010?
- Office 2010 savings – available now.
- Office 2010 ‘free upgrade’ revealed
- Buy Office 2007 – Get Office 2010
