Recovering the activation key from a Win2K installation

["Juan M. Courcoul" <courcoul () campus qro itesm mx>]

Please bear with me, as I only pretend to have a limited knowledge of
Windows internals enough to survive its use.

A discussion arose as to the security of Windows 2000's activation key,
aka the CD or Product Key. A colleague who handles Win2K installations
insisted that once you have keyed in the 29-character string and
activated the OS during a full new install, it is unrecoverable and
hence safe to install in student labs, etc., without the risk of
compromising the corporate license. She went so far as to claim that
even a user with Administrator privileges couldn't get it back.

My gut feeling is that this is bull and constitutes a prime example of
"assumed security thru ignorance". 

Would you kind Windows gurus please tell me who's got it right this time ?

J. Courcoul