One of my biggest pet peeves when it comes to installing software on any computer; is having to stop and enter that long Product Key that’s needed just to use it.

And if you are like me, you’ve installed the software and thrown away the package or misplaced the product key.   

You know what? The vendor knows very well that you’re going to loose the product key. Why do you think they give you that cheap little paper CD envelope? I know why, because they want you to run out and buy another copy.

This is what I do

I create a copy of the software before I even install it. One reason is for safe keeping – just in case the CD gets damaged or lost, and the other reason is I embed the Product key into my copied version so I never have to worry about loosing it or having to type it in ever again!

To create your own CD so either Office 2000 or Office XP automatically fills in the product ID follow these simple steps:

  1. Place the Office 2000 or Office XP CD in your CD Rom
  2. Double click my computer and then right click on the CD-Rom drive that displays the Office 2000 or Office XP program and select explorer.
  3. Now you may not see all the files associated with the program because they are hidden system files. You need to enable “Show hidden files and folder”.
  4. To enable “Show hidden files and folder”, select Tools from the top of the Explorer Window -> Folder Options. Put a check mark in “Show hidden files and folder”, and click Apply and then OK.
    Folder Options
  5. Now copy the source files to a folder on your hard drive.
  6. To make the program enter the product key automatically, you’ll need to edit the SETUP.INI file.
  7. Right click on SETUP.INI and select open with Notepad.
  8. Scroll down to the [OPTIONS] section,  and add the following:
  9. PIDKEY=XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
       Important: Replace the X’s with your product id without the dashes “-”.
  10. For Office 2000 the SETUP.INI file is on the root of the CD.
  11. For Office XP the SETUP.INI file is in the FILES\SETUP folder.

Once you have modified the SETUP.INI file for either Office 2000 or Office XP, close and save the file.

Now all that’s needed is to burn the new Office 2000 or Office XP directory to a CD and your done.

Next time you go to install your copy of Office 2000 or Office XP, it will automatically insert the Product KEY for you.

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