Objective #1: Find MS-SQL license key on a SQL server machine

Today we realized that no body has the license key for SQL Server 2005 that was sitting on a dying machine.  One option was to call Microsoft and answer their endless questions, second option was to discover a query or a tool that would just produce a key.  I opted for the second option(s).

Although there are plenty of free and paid (James River Software Solutions has key finders for almost all MS products) tools that would reveal your product key, I stumbled upon a small and free utility by NirSoft, ProduKey that simply shows you the license/product key of your Windows O/S, Office and SQL (Windows Vista\XP\Server 2000\2003\2008).  A handy little tool if you are planning to re-install your O/S. The reason I like this tool versus Microsoft SQL Key Viewer, which also is free, is because this is handy not just for SQL but also for Office and your O/S - free and all-in-one.

ProduKey

While searching for a tool, I also ran into a query at SQLAuthority that supposedly shows you the key when you run that query.  It didn't work for me but might be worth a try.