Re-install Windows 7 and keep Microsoft Office 2007

Silly me. Your post reminded me I actually have an Office 2007 installation CD that came with my system. I take it the product code is already registered with my mother board so after my reset I can pop in the disk and reinstall it? And thanks for the clean install guide by the way

Thanks for the help!

Neither Belarc nor MJB will return my 2013 key ... it may be because 2013 hides the key OR that I'm using the Office 365 version, for which licensing for my installations is managed online - there may simply be no local "key" to return.  A non-Office 365 installation of 2013 may have a local key that is returned by these programs.

I know they work for 2007 ... I cannot say for sure on 2010, but since licensing for 2010 is similar to 2007, I'd guess the key would be returned by either of these programs.

Belarc Advisor works for retail/OEM Office and Visio 2007 and also Office and Visio 2010. It also works for retail Windows Vista and 7 but for OEM version gives the Dell SLP key and not the key on the COA. So with respect to the original question its fine and isn't needed as the product key will be in the boxed media.

I haven't tested Office 2013 with it as I seen almost no compelling reason to migrate from Office 2010 to 2013 except for the ability to open pdf in Word. The licensing/pricing also seemed a lot worse to me. Moreover if Office 2013 is shipped with a new Dell, the system will likely come only with a MPI card which can easily get misplaced and then that's one less way of recovering a product key making it even worse than the Office 2010 OEM version. Dell the OEM will include the product key as software support which is usually only a limited period of time. If the user loses their product key after that time, they are charged for a new license which isn't cheap. This is a common problem we have brought up a few times with Office 2010.

It appears to work with Windows 8.0/8.1 retail but not sure if it yields the correct OEM embedded product key.

Microsoft seem to be doing extremely well these days making OEM Windows and Office more difficult to install. In an ideal world, product keys for both Office and Windows should be stored/linked to a Microsoft Account and installation media be downloadable with the latest service pack included regardless if OEM or Retail. Deployment of Windows 8 Service Pack 1 or 8.1 was awful as they locked Windows 8 keys out from Windows 8.1 downloaders and installation media.

Microsoft seem to be doing extremely well these days making OEM Windows and Office more difficult to install. In an ideal world, product keys for both Office and Windows should be stored/linked to a Microsoft Account and installation media be downloadable with the latest service pack included regardless if OEM or Retail. Deployment of Windows 8 Service Pack 1 or 8.1 was awful as they locked Windows 8 keys out from Windows 8.1 downloaders and installation media.

In an ideal world, I wouldn't have even had to ask this question because I could be using free software like LibreOffice or Linux where product keys don't exist. Unfortunately, we live in the Microsoft monopoly world where even their train wreck Windows 8 OS is just accepted and used 

Rant aside, I did my reset using alienware respawn and I'm happy with the results. I seem to have reclaimed about half a gig of ram and my system is pretty quick. I decided against the clean install because the alienware install lacks a lot of bloat like McAfee but includes things I need like the alienware command center and dell's data safe backup and driver manager. Also, Office was installed with my backup and all I had to do was put in the 25 character product key on the back of my Office CD. Thank you for your help