Locate your quickbooks serial number in your files…

Ok, not the best title. But still, it sucks when your PC dies, you recover all your quickbooks data files, go to reinstall Quickbooks just to find it asking you for a serial number.
Never fear, for Intuit has placed the serial number on your PC in plain text. As long as you can recover one more file, you can reinstall QB without an issue.

This post assumes some computer knowledge and at least Windows Vista or higher.
Navigate to C:\ProgramData\Common Files\Intuit\Quickbooks and located the file named qbregistration.dat
Edit this file with notepad and search for “LicenseNumber”. There should be several found and the 3rd one should have the serial number following it.
Your product number is also in this file – under the heading InstallID

Not my cleanest post, but hopefully this helps someone in need.