REMOVE VS 2013 PRODUCT KEY FROM REGISTRY

Question

_{Wednesday, May 27, 2015 7:07 PM | 1 vote}

I uninstalled visual studio 2013 using /force option but even after this, it did not clear vs 2013 product key in registry as I found on reinstallation, it said "Product Key applied" even when no new key was supplied. I am using Windows 7

My goal is to discard the previous key and enter a new key. Can some one tell what all steps we need to take to clear VS2013 product key in registry ? Can it be manually done with regedit ? which  all folders this key is stored in registry ?

How can I make VS 2013 on reinstallation ask for new product key ?

All replies (2)

_{Thursday, May 28, 2015 9:45 AM ✅Answered | 1 vote}

Hi Guasha,

Please refer to the following thread:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/12465361/how-to-change-visual-studio-2012-license-key
I found the product key path is: “HKCR\Licenses\E79B3F9C-6543-4897-BBA5-5BFB0A02BB5C” in one post:
“
For me, with Visual Studio 2013, it wasn't enough to remove the license key and perform a repair (the repair restored the license key instead of reverting to a trial, and running it without the repair (after deleting the key) claimed the license had expired but wouldn't let me enter a new key).

I had to:
•Discover what license key Visual Studio was looking for in the registry with Process Monitor (it was HKCR\Licenses\E79B3F9C-6543-4897-BBA5-5BFB0A02BB5C)
•Completely uninstall Visual Studio 2013 (save CurrentSettings.vssettings first)
•Delete the license key from the registry by hand in regedit
•Install Visual Studio using the publicly available web installer (which doesn't have any baked-in license key -- it installs a 30-day trial)
•Enter my new license key
•(Re-)install updates (Update 1 at this time)
•Restore settings by importing the backup I made of CurrentSettings.vssettings
”
If you want to check the registry yourself. Maybe you can try Process Monitor, you can download it from: http://blogs.technet.com/b/askperf/archive/2007/06/01/troubleshooting-with-process-monitor.aspx
You can install the Visual Studio on another machine(You may not able to detect the key on your local machine because it won’t register again), and then launch the Process Monitor and start it when you try registering, and stop the Process Monitor when you finished the registry. You can search for “License(s)” to find the license key.

It is possible that you haven’t uninstall all components of Visual Studio 2013 then you meet this license problem. Besides, there is no official solution to remove VS2013 expect the official uninstall option from Visual Studio 2013 Setup. You may try to remove it use the uninstall option from the setup then remove shared objects manually yourself. Like what we did in VS2012: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2771441/en-us

Hope this information is helpful.

Best Regards,
JiayiLi

_{Thursday, September 3, 2015 7:54 AM | 1 vote}

okay, after several uninstalls, repairs and waste of time i figured it out.

just delete HKCRoot\Licenses\E79B3F9C-6543-4897-BBA5-5BFB0A02BB5C and repair. should take just under an hours. still annoying.

however i have exported the original reg value. and all you guys need to do us click on it, click ok. and done. should take 2 seconds, no repair, uninstall etc required.original file has been uploaded to

http://wikisend.com/download/816060/vs 2013.reg

90 days it expires, so if you got it, upload it here again, so someone else can use it, as i wont come back  here to upload it.

thats all folks