Change the Product Key in Visual Studio Installer

Following to Scott Guthrie's post with some answers to common questions about Visual Studio 2008, I just want to point out how to change the default product key in Visual Studio installer.

You know that by default, Visual Studio installer doesn't allow the change in the product key and you just can view it.

You can't change the product key

While you can upgrade your trial editions easily (as Scott has outlined), you may be interested to have a single installer with your product key to use everywhere when you want. This may be helpful for those who weren't able to download the Visual Studio 2008 at first days and downloaded the 90 days trial edition.

Changing the product key in Visual Studio installer is very simple. First you need to copy your installer files to your hard drive or any device that lets you apply changes because when you're working on these files from DVD drive or virtual drives, they don't let modifications by nature.

After doing this, go to Setup folder and open the setup.sdb file in a text editor like Notepad. The text content has [Product Key] section where you can replace the previous product key with your own and save your changes.

After this, if you run the setup, it uses your new product key for installation!

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7 Comments : 11.27.07

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#1
Alexis Seigneurin
11.29.2007 @ 8:35 AM

Thanks, that was very useful! In my case, I had the french CD of Visual Studio, but I wanted the english version. So I downloaded the english ISO from the MSDN and had to replace the CD key.