So I have the dubious honor of doubling as our in-house IT staff. It’s not actually my job, but I’m the best at it in the building. Which means it’s my duty to freshen up a virus-ridden WinXP computer.

I’ve thrown everything I got at it, which mostly includes running several free scanners from a Linux boot disk, and doing all the regular cleaning procedures from safe mode. And it’s still there. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s probably easier and safer to install from scratch.

Over my years as pseudo-IT, I’ve done this a few times. Every time, there’s been no question about software validity and which key goes with which machine. We have a spreadsheet, and we have labelled boxes, etc. But after the acquisition of a couple other companies, some of that bookkeeping has gotten a little flawed.

So. It’s obvious what the Windows key is. It’s on the side of the box. The Office 2003 key though? No clue. Anyone out there in the intarwebs know how to retrieve that from a file? I know how to get it if I’m logged in and able to run programs. But that’s not really an option.