Productivity Boost – Managing License Keys
Every so often an event happens that makes you realize you need to be better organized in a certain area. For me, wasting the better part of a morning dealing with license key headaches prompted some investigation. Since many SEs have to manage a suite of keys for themselves and the products they sell I thought I few pointers relevant.
1 – Gather existing keys
Since almost everyone deals with Windows and Office let me start there. Reader JS pointed me to a great little app called the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder. It can be used to extract MS license keys from your OS for later reference.
Many products allow you simply to go to Help>License/About/Activation/etc to view your key. For those that don’t, about.com put together a nice reference list of several key finding applications. If you still can’t get a specific key Google may be able to turn up someone who has solved that problem for your product.
2 – Storing keys
Since we’re basically talking about storing paired names (apps and keys) you can work in pretty much any solution to store your keys. I used to have a Google doc I could access from anywhere. You can even buy a special purpose application or freely download a slightly more robust Product Key Manager, though I don’t recommend it.
For the more security-minded, I recommend leveraging your existing password manager. Set up the name of the application and use the password field for you key. This keeps them secure and ensures you don’t need yet another single-purpose app.
3 – Keeping it updated
I sync my password app among multiple computers so I always have it with me when I travel. Depending on how your company manages demo/trial keys, you might be able to set a standard task in your calendar to get a new key set monthly (or whenever it makes sense). That way you never have to worry about showing up to a customer without a key or needing one for a different expiry timeframe, etc.
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Filed under: Productivity, Utilities
