Microsoft’s Visual Studio (written in C and C#) has always been the most powerful IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for C# development.Of course, nowadays, this most productive Visual Studio has also applied to the developments of Android, iOS, Windows, Web, and Cloud applications. Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express offers the simplest starting point for novice developers, with many useful template forms to help populate your projects (“Explorer”, “Login”, “Splash Screen”, “About Box” and more), IntelliSense filtering, and the ability to easily create Windows Presentation Framework (WPF) applications without XAML coding.
I have used one license key and want to switch my configuration to use another key.
I tried to launched the uninstall wizard from 'Add/Remove Programs' in the Windows Control Panel. When I reinstalled, the license still work.
How can I modify my Visual Studio 2010 installation to use another key, and possibly without uninstalling and reinstalling?
Sorry for not clarifying it at the beginning. Actually, a valid key is not available to me for now. Is there a way to remove the original license completely and use VS as a trial version for days.
2 Answers
Change the serial number after Visual Studio 2010 installation
Go to Control Panel -> Programs and Features, locate and highlight Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate/Premium/Professional installation, and click on Uninstall/Change button.
Upgrade Visual Studio 2010 Product Key for Activation
A Visual Studio setup maintenance screen should be shown. After clicking Next button, an option to enter a valid serial number to upgrade product license is available.
Enter the upgrade key accordingly, and click on Activate button. No re-installation required.
There is a way to edit the product key in a file called Setup.SDB. It should be located in
Program Files (x86)Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Professional - ENUSetup.SDB
Edit this file in a notepad and search for Product key. You can then update the product key.
I actually repaired the installation after this change just to make sure everything was working. This was tested on VS2008 and VS2010