Lost CD keys?

In case you have lost your CD-keys and serials from your favorite game or software then it can be a cumbersome task to reinstall it.

Normally the product key is located in the original CD or sometimes in the original manual. If you've lost your product key you can often find it in the Windows Registry but this can be very difficult to do.

There are some free key finder programs available to help in these situations.

SoftKey Revealer

This software can recover CD-keys and serials from over 700 software. Also you can save your recovered data as plain text document (txt) or as Microsoft Word document (doc).

Game Key Revealer

This software can recover CD-keys and serials from over 500 games. Also you can save your recovered data as plain text document (txt) or as Microsoft Word document (doc).

Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder

The Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is a freeware open source utility that retrieves your Product Key (cd key) used to install Windows from your registry. It works on Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, Server 2003, Server 2008, Office XP, Office 2003, and Office 2007 family of products.

Win Keyfinder

Win keyfinder retrieves your Windows XP, Win 2000, Windows Me, 98, 2003 and .NET Product keys from the registry and display it for you.

WinGuggle

WinGuggle is a small application that can set, change and backup your Original Equipment Manufacturer's Information. It can also get your Windows Vista and Office Product Key.

Speed up Acrobat Reader

If you are fed up opening PDF files found in search results because of Acrobat Reader's painfully sluggish startup time, take a break. Try these to improve the startup time.

Adobe Reader SpeedUp

Adobe Reader Speed-Up significantly decreases the amount of time required for Adobe Reader to start by disabling most of the least used plug-in. This has been created as an effort to automate
the process of speeding up Adobe Reader's launch time by disabling the majority of plug-in that are completely useless for most users. It supports most of the version of Acrobat Reader.

Installing this program is very easy.

Download the zip file and extract the files to a folder. Double click on the file "Reader SpeedUp.exe" and start using the program.

Manually disable the plug-in on startup

You can disable the plug-in from loading at the startup. Simply navigate to Reader\plug_ins folder in your installation directory (default:- Program Files\Adobe\Reader x.0) and copy all the files and folders except EWH32.api and anything that says print/search to the folder Reader\Optional.

Some other tips that may improve the performance

One feature of Acrobat Reader is that when you open a PDF link in your browser, Acroread.exe stays in memory. You can use the Windows task manager to kill the process or start and exit the full application to pull it from memory. The other option is to tell Acrobat to launch the full application rather than the browser plug-in. To do this, start Acrobat Reader, go to Edit->Preferences->Internet and uncheck the box labeled "Display PDF in browser". This solves the in memory problem and I think makes for a generally better user experience.

If you are not satisfied even after trying out all these options then its time to try out the free alternatives like Foxit.