Dump plaintext stored WPA PSK key?

[OutToLunch]

Embarassing one - have one PC that someone's messed up the wireless settings on, after fiddling got it working again but it's forgotten the WPA PSK key - and so have I!

Can't find my post it note with the IP, WPA key and admin interface password for that access point and there are another 5 or 6 PCs connecting through it. Rather than reset to factory settings and reconfigure them all, has anyone come across something to dump the stored key from one of the other PCs?

I've found the Nirsoft utility that does a great job on WEP but for WPA only shows a massive hex string, which doesn't seem to relate to actual ascii chars. Is there no way to get back to a plain key?

[Geoff]

It's stored here:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\WZCSVC\Parameters\Interfaces

just export/import the relevant key.

[OutToLunch]

Cheers, I'll go give that a whirl - should buy me sometime until I actually need to reconfigure the access point!

[strawberry]

snadboys revelation can also be useful.

http://www.snadboy.com/

[srochford]

Originally Posted by OutToLunch

Embarassing one - have one PC that someone's messed up the wireless settings on, after fiddling got it working again but it's forgotten the WPA PSK key - and so have I!

Can't find my post it note with the IP, WPA key and admin interface password for that access point and there are another 5 or 6 PCs connecting through it.

If this was in the "FFS" forum about a teacher keeping passwords on a post-it note there would be riots breaking out by now!

Perhaps it's time we introduced to the idea of a database - they can be used for storing structured information in a secure way and they can also be backed up :-)

[OutToLunch]

Originally Posted by srochford

If this was in the "FFS" forum about a teacher keeping passwords on a post-it note there would be riots breaking out by now!

Perhaps it's time we introduced to the idea of a database - they can be used for storing structured information in a secure way and they can also be backed up :-)

Very true! Everything else is in Excel but this was an emergency "We've just moved offices and not told you and we need our internet access back *now*" access point where the details were scribbled down during setup and never made it back to the list.