It happens all too often. You are upgrading to a new computer and, consequently, you need to transfer your stuff from your old PC to your new one. You begin by moving your personal data. Although this is a bit of a hassle, it likely goes relatively smoothly with the aid of a USB key or an external hard drive. Once your files are copied over, you figure it is time to move onto your application software. You take out a CD or DVD (perhaps for Microsoft Office, Adobe Photoshop, or some other software package) from your musty old cupboard, place it into your CD/DVD tray, and boot it up. Initially, things look to be going fine; you click a bunch of “next” buttons and agree with all the terms of installation. But then, all of the sudden, your computer demands a serial number. You hastily take out the CD/DVD, but no luck. You look through your cupboard; unfortunately, you can’t find the manual or the original box. What are you to do? How can you install your software on your new computer without repurchasing it?

Luckily there are a few handy programs available (free of charge) which attempt to alleviate this problem, one of the best being License Crawler. License Crawler is an easy to use application which goes through your registry (a special area in Microsoft Windows) looking for installed software and associated serial numbers. Ideally, if you were to install and run License Crawler on your old machine, you would be able to retrieve your lost serial numbers, and then use this information during the installation process on your new PC.

So why choose License Crawler? First of all, it is very easy to use. All you do it download it, double click on it (since there is no installation), and click “Start Search”. After a minute or two you can sift through the results looking for the appropriate program’s information. Another reason why License Crawler comes highly recommended is due to its propensity to find software packages and serial numbers. Be forewarned that no silver bullet exists, and License Crawler will not find every single program on your machine. Nor will it find every single license key. However, after trying a number of different license recovery programs, it appears to find the most of any free application out there.

So next time, you are upgrading to a new machine and you can’t find that darn manual, go and grab License Crawler. You will probably be glad you did.