Default Keys for Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 Deployment. In Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 you can perform a full OS installation without having to manually enter a product key like you had to in previous Microsoft operating systems. This feature makes the installation much easier, and while Windows Server 2008 RTM and Windows Vista were polite about asking for the key (and you could simply ignore this polite request and promise to enter it after setup), in Windows Server 2008 R2 and Windows 7 you no longer need to have the key handy during the installation process. Where are the keys located. So where does the installation process grab the keys from? How does it know what key to enter. The answer is simple. It has knowledge of all the keys that can be used, and it takes that information from a simple textual answer file that is used, by default, during the installation process. You can locate the file, called . in the installation DVD, in the SOURCES folder. This is how it looks like in Windows 7. If you open the file, you ll get the following list of product keys.
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