If you’ve just built or bought a new PC to run Windows 7 on; you might want to run all the programs that you ran in XP or Vista. Some of these may be programs that you purchased from online vendors which have a setup program which requires an installation key. In some cases the user may have retained both the installation program and the installation-key. Guess what: You’ve lost the key.

Vista to 7

When moving up from Windows Vista to Windows 7; you can do an in-place upgrade and take all your programs from Vista to 7, and they’ll work “perfectly” without any problem – At least that’s the idea. In reality, though, any errors/corruption or whatever that appeared on your previous Vista installation will most likely appear on your Windows 7 installation if you use this method; and any problems you encountered running things in Vista may recur in 7, or worse.

I’m an advocate of reformat/reinstall: I don’t advise an in-place upgrade for the reasons mentioned above.

XP Dead-End

With Windows XP as your previous operating system, you’ll have to go the reformat/reinstall route anyway: There is no way of doing an in-place upgrade anyway in such a case.

Drive-Transplant

You might think that it would be an idea to take the old machine’s hard-drive and install it in your new machine. The added drive will appear as a second hard-drive, and you’ll be able to access all the data on it. As for the programs on it, though; that’s a different matter: –

If a program was installed using a setup program initially; then there’s a 999/1000 chance that it’ll require the setup program again to make it of any use to the new machine… And, of course, you’ve lost the key, even if you still have the setup program.

A lot of programs, rely on configuration and registry settings that are made within the operating system by the installer-program. Without having run setup, those settings are not in place, and the programs will not run.

There are a few, smaller, programs that don’t require a setup at all, but usually anything in the way of programs that are either large or purchased will require their specific setup programs to be run before they can be used.

Get Set-Up

The first place to look would be the website where you originally purchased the program from. In some cases the vendor will no longer be providing the setup program for your particular version of the program, as it has now become “obsolete” and new versions have since been issued. In cases such as these you should probably buy the latest version anyway, as the old program you were using may contain incompatibilities with your new operating system, as well as security vulnerabilities which have been patched in later versions.

Think Ahead

I personally have a way round the “lost-key” scenario: I hold on to a copy of the installation-program wherever possible, and I send all of my installation emails containing installation-keys to one of my Gmail accounts, so that any time I want to reinstall a program I find its setup-program on the relevant storage-media, and I look up the installation-key online on the relevant Gmail account: Target neutralised.

Scrooge Isn’t Just For Christmas

At the end of the day, then, in most cases, if you don’t have a setup program and a key, if one is necessary, you’re screwed: ‘Simple as that. – But stop being so tight-fisted: shell out a few bucks for the latest version of the program in question: It’ll be compatible with your new operating system, it’ll be secure, and it will possibly save you time and hassle by avoiding any of the problems which would have arisen had you eventually installed the old version, having got hold of a setup program and a key, by whatever means.

I myself am a cheapskate, and I’ll be a freeloader as well as a paying consumer if it’s a viable proposition to do so: In many cases, however, it isn’t a viable proposition to be a freeloader and/or to try and do it all on the cheap. The above is one of those situations: One where shelling out a little, rather than avoiding doing so in any way possible, is actually going to save you time and money at the end of the day: It’s a situation where you spend money in order to save money.

Lastly; if you use hacked or pirated software in its place then you’re asking for trouble, and if you end up screwing-up your operating system completely because of that then I have no sympathy for you whatsoever: You got exactly what you deserved, and hopefully that’s taught you a lesson.

Summary Before Midwinter

In summary, then, if you’ve lost your product installation key and/or your installation program and the program doesn’t work when you try to move it between operating systems; buy new: It’s the most sensible and cost-effective way to go when all’s said and done.