Serial keys for software programs, more accurately called product keys or installation keys, are needed before you can install almost any popular software program.
Identify Song by singing it to the App/Service. This is probably the most convenient option to identify a song. All you need to do is sing the lyrics of the song in front of your PC microphone, and the tool will identify the song. If you don’t know the exact lyrics, you can also just hum or whistle the song. There are many mobile apps and websites that can help you find the key of a song. Running a search for the name of the song and the key may bring up the answer for you quickly. When you’re first beginning to learn to find keys by ear it is a good idea to double check that you’re finding the correct answer.
Serial keys or key codes are often required during the first part of a program's installation or sometimes after using a program for a certain period of time.
So what do you do when you can't find that special installation code but you need to install the program again?
Where Can I Find Serial Keys and Installation Codes for My Software?
Without a doubt, a key finder program - a special kind of software tool - is the best way to go if you're lost a serial key for one of your software programs, so long as it's still installed or recently was.
Product key finder programs are software tools that automatically search your computer for the serial keys stored in the Windows Registry or elsewhere on your computer.
For example, when you installed your operating system and other software, the product keys used during their installations were stored, probably encrypted, inside a specific registry key.
See our article on free product key finder software programs for a ranked and reviewed collection of these very handy tools, all of which are free to download, install, and use.
Now, you could manually look in the registry for the serials and install keys yourself, but they can be very hard to find. Not only that, the stored keys are usually encrypted, making what you dig up there completely useless anyway.
Most product key finder programs were originally designed to find the serial numbers and key codes for operating systems like Windows 10, 8, 7, Vista, etc., but many of them find serials and keys for many other programs, too, like office suites, video games, and more.
What If the Program I'm Missing the Serial Key for Isn't Installed Anymore?
Even if you think, or know, the program you've lost the key for isn't installed on your computer anymore, you should still try one of the higher rated product key finder tools in our list.
Sometimes,a program will leave the registry keys that contain that program's serial key in the registry even after it's uninstalled, which is why this is worth a try. This isn't usually the case when the program was removed with a dedicated software uninstaller, but it's still worth a try.
If that doesn't work, you're left with digging around for the box the software came in, the email that accompanied the download, etc.
What If I Still Can't Find the Installation Code I'm After?
Unfortunately, at this point, your only legal option is to buy a new copy of the program.
In your search for help with lost serial keys, you've probably come across software cracking tools, keygen programs or maybe even lists of free key codes, there for the taking.
It's very important to realize that none of those resources are legal ways of obtaining installation keys or any other unique code designed to protect programs from being pirated.
The only legal way of installing software is by using a valid installation code obtained through a legal purchase of the software program.
Know the tune to a song, but don’t remember the lyrics? Normally, I hear a song on the radio or in a coffee shop and if I can’t figure out the artist, I just Google some of the lyrics while they are fresh in my mind. I had written a few months back abouthow to find the name or title of a song by lyrics, but that’s only useful if you know the lyrics.
Also, there are lots of songs without any lyrics, so in those cases you definitely have to identify the song by tune or by sound. Luckily, there are a ton of ways to identify songs easily with online tools, desktop apps and smartphone apps. In this article, I’ll list out the different methods for you can utilize to tag a song.
Identify Songs Online
If you’re sitting with your computer, then the easiest way to identify a song would be to use many of the free online services. Over the years, they have become fairly advanced and even allow you to just hum the tune of songs to identify them.
Midomi
Midomi will let you sing or hum a tune to identify a song, so if you like singing to yourself all the time, this will be perfect for you. I’m a terrible singer, so the service had a pretty hard time identifying half of the songs I tried to sing. My wife passed by and sang three songs and Midomi identified all three. So it looks like your singing ability will affect your results.
Thankfully, humming a few tunes proved to deliver better results for me so if your singing isn’t working, try humming. The accuracy isn’t all that great, so keep reading if you aren’t able to identify your song with Midomi.
AudioTag
Midomi is the only online tool that I could find that lets you sing or hum to identify songs. Everything else is either a smartphone app or desktop software. The other interesting site I found was AudioTag.
Here you can basically upload a sound bite from the song and it will try to compare the song to it’s online database. If you hear a song and are able to record a portion of it using your phone, then you can try your luck by uploading that to AudioTag. It can also prove useful if you have MP3 files with no identifiable artist or song information and need to tag them properly.
In addition to these automatic tagging sites, there are a couple of human powered sites to help you identify music. Basically, you upload your singing or humming or music portion and people on the Internet will try to help you identify it.
NameMyTune
NameMyTune is a very simple site with only two options: record yourself or listen to other people’s recording to help identify their tune. Just click on Find the name of a song and allow access to your microphone. Press the record button and start singing! Choose the genre of the music and about how old it is and then type in your email address. Now you just have to wait and hopefully someone will be able to figure it out for you.
WatZatSong
WatZatSong has a terrible name, but does the same thing as NameMyTune. I like NameMyTune more because it doesn’t require you to sign up like WatZatSong does. Once you do, just record your audio sample and sit back and relax while someone else identify the crazy music you listen to!
Identify Songs using Smartphone Apps
Your options are greatly expanded if you can use your smartphone to identify songs. You’ve probably heard of several apps before because of their popularity.
Shazam
Shazam is the one of the most popular tools for identifying music and other types of media. The app has gotten more and more features over the years and for avid music listeners, this app is great. One of the best features is the automatic background listening option it lets you enable that will continuously identify music, movies and TV shows without having to open the app.
It does a good job of not killing your battery and it really works. If you never want to miss a song that you hear while going about your day, then Shazam is pretty awesome. It also has a bunch of other features like real-time lyrics and the ability to watch music videos for the songs from YouTube.
SoundHound
SoundHound is another app for all smartphone platforms that is pretty similar to Shazam, but also has the additional option of listening to you sing a song or hum.
I haven’t been able to find any other smartphone app that can listen to you sing or hum, so this is your only choice if you want to go about doing it that way. SoundHound also has live lyrics and the other normal social music features.
Identify Songs with Desktop Software
There are a couple of options when it comes to desktop software, but not a whole lot. Also, unless you don’t own a smartphone and don’t use the Internet much, desktop software is probably your last choice.
Audiggle
Audiggle is a simple little desktop app that will listen to a song from your microphone and try to identity it. When you first run it, it’ll ask you to choose a recording input and then you’ll have to login. You can register directly from the program interface and then login.
One you login, you can start using the program to identify songs. Overall, it did a decent job of identifying songs, but nothing to write home about. It would be nice if they just had a web version of the software, which the site says they are working on, but that may never happen.
Tunatic
Tunatic is another free program, but it’s really old. According to the website, it still states that it’s been designed for Windows 2000 and Windows XP! Yikes! Sadly, there really are no other desktop apps for identifying music. Like I mentioned before, it’s all most online or in a smartphone app.
Once you install it, a small little window appears that seems to floats on the desktop. Just start playing your song and then click the little search icon button to identify the song. The software does take a bit of time, but seems to work. That’s not to say the results were very good. I tried to identify some newer songs and Tunatic came back with some crazy results I had never heard of. I think it’s so old that it probably only works for songs before the year 2002.
So as you can see, the best options you have are from the smartphone apps. They seem to be the most reliable and most up-to-date in terms of song databases. Some of the websites aren’t too bad either, but I had a lot more luck with the phone apps. If you use something else to identify music, let us know in the comments. Enjoy!