The Complete Guide to Finding Serial Numbers


Words of Caution

This is not a guide on how to manually reverse engineer software or other such ‘cracking tutorial,’ there are plenty of those available.
This is not an invitation to email me asking for serials, this guide was created for the purpose of you helping yourself.

This is not a guide on how to use third party applications. It is assumed that you know how to use newsgroups, IRC, and so forth….If not, a simple search on Google or search engine of your choice, will find you all the help you need.

On the other hand, this is a guide on where to find, or at least look for, serial numbers, key generators, patches, and so forth for games and software. Either you downloaded a shareware copy that’s about to expire or need a serial to play a multiplayer game you begin looking for serial numbers, well this guide will show you some places to look. However, since this text features websites and such, don’t be surprised if some of the links don’t work by the time you read this. All I can guarantee is that at the time this was written all links were (are) active.
Search Venue 1: The Web

There is a cornucopia of websites that archive key generators (which generate serial numbers). Arguably, the most popular search engine, which searches several websites for serials is
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, simply type the name of your application or game and hit search. A tip on searching is not to be specific, for example, leave out the version number. While this may bring up a lot of useless results for older versions, it nonetheless increases your chances of success due to simply things like the fact that a search for ‘v7.0’ would’ve turned up nothing because the file was titles as ‘v 7’.
Several other websites which archive serials are listed below, keep in mind that pop ups are rampant in some sites, hence it is advisable that one gets a pop up stopper program before visiting the sites.

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You may also wish to use a search engine, such as Google, to search for serial, in the search field use your head and type something creative like “photoshop serial.”
Search Venue 2: Newgroups

You can use newsgroups to post a request for serials, as well as to browse back archives of previous requests/replies. You can search archives of newsgroups using
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and typing in some keywords.
Some newsgroups which you should visit include:

• alt.2600.crack
• alt.2600.crackz
• alt.cracks
• viwa.hack.and.crack
• alive.market.wanted.serialnumbers

Search Venue 3: IRC

There are also various IRC channels which allow you to search for serials, such as #serialz on efnet and #serialz or #crackz on undernet.
Search Venue 4: Miscellaneous Last Resorts

In the unlikely event that all of the above venues yielded no results, here are a few more last resort methods you can try.

1. Go to the computer store and inconspicuously open a software or game box and copy down the serial number.
2. Write a heart touching letter (not email, but snail mail) to the software company explaining how you bought the software only to find out there was no serial number…Although this method is unlikely to work, you may also want to include a forged receipt.
3. Finally, I have seen a few companies which publish a default serial number on their websites in case the customer has lost her original number, so it’s always a good idea to browse through the software maker’s website.

Good luck!