How do I get a product key for Visual Studio Express Desktop 2012 if I am not a business? [closed] Ask Question 5. I have been using VS Express 2012 for almost a month and now it states that I must enter a product key to continue using it. @TonyHopkinson You can use Visual Studio Express 2012 for Windows Desktop to build powerful desktop. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate Product Key. Visual Studio 2010 Professional YCFHQ-9DWCY-DKV88-T2TMH-G7BHP OR YCFHQ 9DWCY DKV88 T2TMH G7BHP. Visual Studio 2012 Ultimate RBCXF-CVBGR-382MK-DFHJ4-C69G8. Visual Studio 2012 professional 4D974-9QX42-9Y43G-YJ7JG-JDYBP. Visual Studio 2013 Ultimate BWG7X-J98B3-W34RT.

I have a Copy of Visual Studio 2012 Pro on my machine with a Serial key that i'm no longer suppose to use because i have to use another one. My problem is i keep Uninstalling Visual studio but the Registration information is still there after re-install and i cannot figure out which registry path i have to delete (i deleted a few) with no luck.

Is there a easy way to remove tha reg info or swap my keys?

Thanks

Ralph Willgoss

8 Answers

I had the same problem and wanted to change the product key to another. Unfortunate it's not as easy as it was on VS2010.

The following steps work:

• Remove the registry key containing the license information:HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTLicenses77550D6B-6352-4E77-9DA3-537419DF564B

• If you can't find the key, use sysinternals ProcessMonitor to check the registry access of VS2012 to locate the correct key which is always in HKEY_CLASSES_ROOTLicenses

• After you remove this key, VS2012 will tell you that it's license information is incorrect. Go to 'Programs and features' and repair VS2012.

• After the repair, VS2012 is reverted to a 30 day trial and you can enter a new product key. This could also be used to stay in a trial version loop and never enter a producy key.

For those who will need to remove product key from Visual Studio 2015:

1. remove registry key HKCRLicenses4D8CFBCB-2F6A-4AD2-BABF-10E28F6F2C8F
2. repair Visual Studio installation

That's it, now you can change the product key if necessary.

AlexAlex

For me, with Visual Studio 2013, it wasn't enough to remove the license key and perform a repair (the repair restored the license key instead of reverting to a trial, and running it without the repair (after deleting the key) claimed the license had expired but wouldn't let me enter a new key).

I had to:

• Discover what license key Visual Studio was looking for in the registry with Process Monitor (it was HKCRLicensesE79B3F9C-6543-4897-BBA5-5BFB0A02BB5C)
• Completely uninstall Visual Studio 2013 (save CurrentSettings.vssettings first)
• Delete the license key from the registry by hand in regedit
• Install Visual Studio using the publicly available web installer (which doesn't have any baked-in license key -- it installs a 30-day trial)
• Enter my new license key
• (Re-)install updates (Update 1 at this time)
• Restore settings by importing the backup I made of CurrentSettings.vssettings

CameronCameron

To see what's inside these HKCRLicenses useAPI Monitor v2

sample data that'll come out from CryptUnprotectData:

Useful here is maybe the Installation timestamp (11.10.2015 here )Change this would required to call 'CryptProtectData'. Doing so needs some efforts like written a small program OR stop with ollydebug at this place and manually 'crafting' a CryptProtectData call ...

Note: In this example I'm using Microsoft® Visual Studio 2015

-> For a quick'n'dirty sneak into an expired VS I recommend to read this post. However that's just good for occasional use, till you get all the sign up and login crap properly done again ;)

Okay the real meat is here:
%LOCALAPPDATA%MicrosoftVisualStudio14.0Licenses ^- This path comes from HKCUSoftwareMicrosoftVisualStudio14.0Licenses715f10eb-9e99-11d2-bfc2-00c04f9902351

1_3jdh3uyw**.crtok**

-after some Base64 decoding:

Seems M$ is using JSON Web Token (JWT) to wrap in license data.I guess inside CertificateBytes will be somehow the payload - you're email and other details.

So far for the rough overview what's the data inside.

For more wishes get ILSpy + Reflexil (<- to changes/correct little things!) and then 'browser&correct' files likec:Program Files (x86)Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0Common7IDE**Microsoft.VisualStudio.Licensing.dll**or check out 'Microsoft.VisualStudio.Services.WebApi.dll'

For those of you using Visual Studio 2017 Professional, the registry key is:

HKCRLicenses5C505A59-E312-4B89-9508-E162F8150517

I also recommend you first export the registry key, before you delete it, so you'll have a backup if you accidentally delete the wrong key.

See my UPDATE at the end, before reading the following answer.

I have windows 8 and another pc with windows 8.1

I had License error saying 'Prerelease software. License expired'.

The only solution that I found which is inspired by the above solutions (Thanks!) was to run process monitor and see the exact registry keys that are accessed when I start the VS2013 which were:

HKCRLicensesE79B3F9C-6543-4897-BBA5-5BFB0A02BB5C

like what are mentioned in the previous posts. However the process monitor said that this registry is access denied.

So I opened regedit and found that registry key and I could not open it. It says I have no permission to see it.

SO I had to change its permission:

1. Right click on the 'HKCRLicensesE79B3F9C-6543-4897-BBA5-5BFB0A02BB5C' key
2. Permissions
3. Add
4. In 'Enter object names to select' I have added my windows user name. Ok.
5. check on Full control
6. Advanced
7. Owner click on 'Change'
8. In 'Enter object names to select' I have added my windows user name. Ok.
9. Ok. Ok. Ok.

I found that this registry key has several sub keys, however you have to restart regedit to see them.

By seeing which other registry keys are access denied in process monitor , I knew that VS2013 will specifically deal with these subkeys which are ACCESS DENIED also:061810bcad

and these subkeys should be changed their permissions as well like above.

After making these permission changes everything worked well.

The same thing has been done to Microsoft visual studio 2010 because an error in the license as well and the solution worked well.

UPDATE :It turned out that starting visual studio as administrator solved this issue without this registry massage. Seems that this happened to my pc after changing the 'required password to login' removed in the user settings. (I wanted to let the pc start running without any password after restart from a crash or anything else). This made a lot of programs not able to write into some folders like temp folders unless I start the application as admin. Even printing from excel would not work, if excel is not started as admin.

Visual Studio Ultimate 2013 Serial Key

The ISO is probably pre-pidded. You'll need to delete the key from the setup files. It should then ask you for a key during installation.

MonstieurMonstieur

The solution with removing the license information from the registry also works with Visual Studio 2013, but as described in the answer above, it is important to execute a 'repair' on Visual Studio.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged visual-studio-2012visual-studio-2013visual-studio-2015 or ask your own question.

With the release of Visual Studio 2012 Microsoft also released evaluation editions to let people experience that edition of Visual Studio. However when installing the Visual Studio 2012 Trial (Evaluation) one is greeted with the following activation dialog: “Please enter a valid Microsoft Visual Studio Product Key”

If one followed the designed workflow through the Microsoft download site one should have gotten a trial key. But what if one used the wrong workflow ? How does one continue ?

This dialog was intended for developers which have a license for Visual Studio 2012 and want to upgrade the trail version to the full version or just register to get the full 90 days of evaluation. Since we don’t want to upgrade and don’t have a key, one could just click “Cancel”. Pressing “Cancel” will close the activation window and the first 30 day of the trial will commence. This 30 days trial can expanded to 90 days using a trial key which can be obtained by clicking “order online” in this dialog. Clicking “extend” allows one to register and one is presented with a trial key which activates the full 90 days trial. source: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg442061(v=vs.110).aspx

Visual Studio Ultimate 2012 Product Key Free

While its technically correct, it can be a bit confusing if you are used to embedded keys in the Visual Studio products like me.