Lost FCP upgrade serial

[brewfeller]

In the process of moving my office and one of my Macs going down...
I have lost the serial for FCP Studio 5.1 universal.
I have the numbers for 4.5 and 6 upgrade numbers but somehow lost the 5.1 serial. The old computer that is installed on has a bad graphics card and wont allow FCP to boot up for me to get the serial off of the FCP launch screen. I can only hook up a VGA monitor which the FCP config won't recognize and it refuses to boot up.
AAAAGGG!
I know the Serial exists in the HD/Library/application support/ProApps/Final Cut Studio system ID etc... but it can't be read with a text editor.
Can you read it or find with Terminal?
Is there another way short of calling Apple?
When installing the upgrade it always asks for the previous version serial and I just can't get it...

 

[jcooke]

I would think that calling Apple would be the easy way of getting it back. You just have to call Apple and prove that you say who you are, they will check that you have really bought it and then they will give you the serial. At least that is how I've done it in the past.

 

[Giaguara]

That's the best way - as long as you have registered the serial number with them one day.
It's always a good practice to keep all serials somewhere safe, e.g. on a secure note in keychain (which then is backed up somewhere else, on another computer or drive etc) - just in case.
There are good reasons why software serials aren't (and shouldn't be) visible in cleartext in /Library.