How to change the product key for Office XP, for Office 2003, and for the 2007 Office system

1.

Close all Office programs.

2.

Click Start, click Run, type regedit, and then click OK.

3.

Locate and then click the following subkey, depending on your version of Windows and of Office:

32-bit versions

2007 Office system
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Registration

Office 2003
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Registration

Office XP
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \Software\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Registration

64-bit versions

2007 Office system
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\12.0\Registration

Office 2003
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Registration

Office XP
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\10.0\Registration

4.

Export the Registration subkey.

You can make a backup of the values under the Registration subkey if the new product key does not work. To do this, follow these steps:

Note In steps 4a through 4c, you created a backup of the Registration subkey. You can restore the Registry settings of the Registration subkey by double-clicking the .reg file that you saved in step 4c. The contents of the .reg file are automatically exported to the Registry.

5.

Under the Registration subkey, there may be several Globally Unique Identifiers (GUID) that contain a combination of alphanumeric characters. Each GUID is specific to a program that is installed on your computer.

Click a GUID. Then, view the version of Office that is listed in the right pane for the Productname registry entry. After you find the GUID that contains the version of your Office program, follow these steps:

6.

Close Registry Editor.

7.

Open an Office program, such as Microsoft Word. When you receive a message that prompts you for the product key, type the correct product key, and then click OK.