Sometimes when you know you will be re-installing a program or installing it on another machine, you will need to find what product key you have. Be sure to read your user agreement and make sure it allows installation on multiple machines.

Ideally, you recorded the product key (also called CD key or serial number) when you installed the program and can just look it up. However, often people do not record it or forget where they recorded it.

Sometimes you can find it by going to “Help” in the program and choosing “About [program name] and it will give it to you. That does not always work.

Belarc is a program that will look at your entire computer and tell you all the hardware and software that is on it. Belarc will also look at each of the programs and usually tell you what the product key is for each program. Belarc Advisor is a free (for personal use) program on the Internet at http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html. It has been around a number of years. I use it to get a summary of my machine every so often. It will tell you about memory and disk space also.

Thanks to Laura for the question.

Send questions about computers to dwight@dwightwatt.com and tell me you read this in this paper. I will pick a question to answer each week.

Send your questions to Dwight Watt at dwight@dwightwatt.com. He teaches at a technical college in northwest Georgia and does consulting work for businesses and individuals. His website is www.dwightwatt.com.