If you’ve ever had a computer crash, you know the panic of wondering how much of your information is lost forever. Hopefully you’ve already setup some sort of backup system in place, to protect your data from these types of situations. However, even if all of your pictures, documents, and other important files are safely stored on another hard drive, the product keys for some of your most valuable software might not be.

Product keys should always be kept in a safe location, so as not to be lost. However, if you find yourself in a situation where you’ve lost them, you may still be in luck. There is a great guide here on how to use a piece of freeware called ProduKey to recover the product keys from most Microsoft programs and operating systems. Just remember though, if you take the right precautions, you shouldn’t need to ever use it.