How to Change or Reset Product Key of Microsoft Office XP, 2003 and 2007?

Many times you might want to change the product key of Office suite installed in your system. It might be because your product key expired and you got a new one or it might be because you installed Office using pirated key and now you want to change the product key with a genuine one.

To change the product key you'll have to uninstall the Office suite from your system and then reinstall it.

But here is a small and simple tutorial which will help you in changing the product key without uninstalling the Office.

Change Office XP Product Key:

1. Open regedit and goto:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Registration

2. Under "Registration" key, you'll see one or more GUID (Globally Unique IDentifiers) containing a combination of alphanumeric characters in following format:

{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}

3. Select each key and look at "ProductName" key in right-side pane. One GUID key will contain the version number of Office installed in your system "Microsoft Office XP Professional Edition".

4. Select that GUID key and delete following 2 registry entries from right-side pane:

DigitalProductID
ProductID

5. Close registry editor and run any Office application e.g. word, excel, etc. It should prompt you to enter a new product key.

6. Enter the desired product key and click on OK. That's it.

Change Office 2003 Product Key:

1. Open regedit and goto:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Registration

2. Under "Registration" key, you'll see one or more GUID (Globally Unique IDentifiers) containing a combination of alphanumeric characters in following format:

{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}

3. Select each key and look at "ProductName" key in right-side pane. One GUID key will contain the version number of Office installed in your system e.g. "Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003".

4. Select that GUID key and delete following 2 registry entries from right-side pane:

DigitalProductID
ProductID

5. Close registry editor and run any Office application e.g. word, excel, etc. It should prompt you to enter a new product key.

6. Enter the desired product key and click on OK. That's it.

Change Office 2007 Product Key:

1. Open regedit and goto:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Registration

2. Under "Registration" key, you'll see one or more GUID (Globally Unique IDentifiers) containing a combination of alphanumeric characters in following format:

{xxxxxxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxxxxxxxxxx}

3. Select each key and look at "ProductName" key in right-side pane. One GUID key will contain the version number of Office installed in your system "Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2007".

4. Select that GUID key and delete following 2 registry entries from right-side pane:

DigitalProductID
ProductID

5. Close registry editor and run any Office application e.g. word, excel, etc. It should prompt you to enter a new product key.

6. Enter the desired product key and click on OK. That's it.

IMPORTANT NOTES:

A. Take a backup of "Registration" key before deleting the registry entries from right-side pane, so that in case the new product key doesnt work you can restore the previous key without any problem. To take backup right-click on "Registration" key and select "Export".

B. If you are a x64 bit Windows user, then the key location will be different in registry. Please check following paths:

Office XP:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\10.0

Office 2003:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\11.0

Office 2007:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\12.0

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This article was posted in Microsoft Office, Troubleshooting.

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30 Comments

VG

^^ You'll need to purchase the license and then you can use that key.
Tony

I have Office Pro XP which needs repair, but through two house moves the CD has gone missing. So I have purchased another copy but it will not accept the key and I did not want to have to reinstall the whole thing, is there a way to use the new product ID with the existing copy, so that I can use the new CD to help repair the problem?

Thanks
Tony
VG

^^ Try to install the new version with the new key. I think it should upgrade the existing version.
Michelle

Thank you SOO Much.. I went to a couple other sites on how to remove the id i had put in there and it didnt work. This was easy to use and Didnt take long at all... Thanks again!
Chris

Wow! Thank you!!

I had a retail version of Office 2003 SBE on my Hewlett Packard workstation last year. Then a few days ago, one of our DELL workstations needed Office 2003 SBE and the only copy that I was able to find was an OEM version licensed for HP machines.

Typically that means uninstalling the retail copy on mine, installing it on the DELL, and then installing the HP/OEM version on my Hewlett Packard. In other words: I'm basically re-installing Office, losing all of my Outlook-Word-Excel-PP-Publisher settings, and burning valuable time........JUST TO CHANGE A NUMBER IN THE REGISTRY???

So *achem* I am very pleased that, with this simple hack, I was able to swap the product keys within seconds so that everything is correctly licensed. Thanks again for posting this information!

Chris
Mark

Since I am a x64 bit Windows user, I went to a different location of my registration.
I followed all your steps and installation was successfully, yet everytime I load MS Word or Powerpoing it still asks me to enter the product key and activate.

I went back to 'regedit' and saw that the "ProductID" and "Product Name" somehow came back after deleting them in the first place.

I really need your help. My school is gonna start soon.
Thanks.
VG

^^ Its supposed to ask product key once you delete the keys. You'll need to enter your new product key and activate it.
Jack

I followed the steps above and all was fine at first. Then when they prompted me to type in a new product key, mine could not be accepted. My product key should be working because its the actual one that came with my purchased Microsoft Office 2007 Suite. I checked repeatedly that I did not misspell anything or leave anything out, but it still didn't work. Can someone please help me?
VG

^^ You should use the Phone option and activate it. Sometimes online activation doesnt work even the product key is genuine.
chas

Worked fine for changing Office Key to a Legit Key. Good Advise. thanks