Bit of advice on Win7 no longer being activated.....

kevpuk

kevpuk

kevpuk

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I built a PC for a friend's father-in-law a couple of years back, and installed Windows 7 Home Premium (boxed version). The PC has been fine, and now all of a sudden is reporting that Windows is not Genuine etc.

Activation status shows as 'Not Available' and I struggle to get it to access sites such as Microsoft Genuine and so on - ironically, things like Google, BBC and so on all seem to work fine, but anything that might be 'useful' does not.

It seems to have Norton IS installed, but does not run....I used the Norton disc to get to web-based tools, which cleared a few things up, and also booted from the DVD to run a full scan...which brought up no issues.

Apparently, these problems have started since trying to install iTunes etc., as he has been gifted some sort of iPod. I have struggled, but finally managed to remove all Apple bits and pieces, just in case......

System Restore appears to be turned off - the last restore points are 6 months old, and apparently not on installed drive(s). No hardware has been changed, though.

I have run the MGADiag tool, which has basically told me that the Product Key is invalid and an error code (which I can't recall)....have tried a CMD as Admin and run all applicable variants of slmgr.vbs to try and remove duff product key info, re-enter product key and so on....but can never get the Product Key to 'stick' for activation. I *know* that this Windows licence is genuine, as I purchased it and installed it for him when building the PC.

So.......this is either a nastily corrupted Windows install = format and reinstall....or is virus/malware related ?.....or there is something wrong with the Product Key, which makes no sense.

Help ? Please.....
 
Thanks - I am thinking a call to Microsoft is probably first step.
The only worry with a re-install is if there is something I am not aware of (unlikely, but who knows) and I then still cannot get the Product Key to work.....

= call Microsoft, I guess !
 
Just one thing if you haven't already - try restarting. Sometimes genuine activations fail, but a few restarts can sort them.

kevpuk said:
Thanks - I am thinking a call to Microsoft is probably first step.
The only worry with a re-install is if there is something I am not aware of (unlikely, but who knows) and I then still cannot get the Product Key to work.....

= call Microsoft, I guess !
Click to expand...

There's normally a freephone number when you unsuccessfully attempt an activation - usually you don't even need to speak to a representative.

If it does come to a reinstall, do a full backup image of the current state to another hard drive - that way if you do come across something that's missing, you can always get it back to the current point to attempt to retrieve it.
 
Yup, there have been a few reboots.....actually, I also ran a sfc /scannow and this prompted a restart at the end.....but no joy :(
 
If it prompted a restart, I'd imagine you've got a failing hard drive on your hands.

Check eventviewer for hard drive errors.
 
kevpuk said:
Norton IS installed.
Click to expand...
Norton as in Symantec software?, i had major issues with their 360, never again would i touch anything from Symatec Corporation, some may approve, even after unistalling Symatec from my computer and going through windows registry there was still bogus? Symantec files in the background somewhere, had to clean install windows 7 x64.
 
kevpuk said:
Yeah, I am pretty sure that the restart is a result/requirement of the SFC.....
Click to expand...

No, I meant the failing hard drive bit. I was wondering if Bledd was confusing SFC with chkdsk.

SFC normally does prompt for a restart... for whatever reason, it never actually seems to fix anything (which is infuriating, as it should be much more powerful than it is) and several Microsoft system files go without being repaired.

I guess that is still the biggest issue with Windows - it should be much more resilient against corruption (from software issues) and more flexible at healing itself without resorting to the big hammer approach of an in-place reinstall.
 
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Well, I managed to speak to Microsoft and confirm that there is no issue with the Product Key - as I expected, but good to check - and so set about reinstalling Windows......few hours of a couple of thousand updates later and all seems to be just fine.

Agreed, it is a shame that Microsoft does not have better resilience/repair tools built-in, although perhaps Win8 with it's 'Refresh' etc. will prove better ?
 
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