Windows is not Genuine.

[TW]Fox · 27 Sep 2009 at 00:51

Hi guys,

I am running a legal, licensed and legitimately aquired copy of Windows 7 Release Candidate 1 on my Laptop. It was downloaded from the Microsoft website and installed using a Microsoft supplied beta key at the same time as everyone else on here got it - early June I think? It is Build 7100.

It has been working fine since then.

I just switched the machine on to be greeted with a full screen message from Microsoft saying my copy of Windows is not Genuine, and that I should get a genuine copy, and that I'm a very bad person.

This is confusing.

Why has this happened?

The hard drive in this machine is failing and I've spent most of the evening running scandisk recovering/marking/etc bad sectors on the drive. The message has appeared since then. Could this be related?

Thanks guys!

paradigm · 27 Sep 2009 at 00:56

Date/time hasn't changed on the machine has it?

Pho · 27 Sep 2009 at 00:56

I got this a few weeks ago with Vista. Running the 'validate windows' checks at http://www.microsoft.com/Genuine/ a couple of times seemed to shut it up - or maybe it was just coincidence.

[TW]Fox · 27 Sep 2009 at 00:59

Pho said:
I got this a few weeks ago with Vista. Running the 'validate windows' checks at http://www.microsoft.com/Genuine/ a couple of times seemed to shut it up - or maybe it was just coincidence.

Says it doesnt support Windows 7. How odd. Date and time has not changed either. Just checked my 'Activation Status' and it says its activated fine? Strange.

Diggsy · 27 Sep 2009 at 02:12

Malware maybe?

snowdog · 27 Sep 2009 at 02:15

Personally I'd just download a version with all the DRM **** removed & run that, this is exactly the reason I cba with doing everything by the book anymore. Too much shafting of legitimate users it's far easier to just grab a release with all the crap removed & run that.

raptormonkey · 27 Sep 2009 at 11:24

I would have guessed Malware too.

dr4g0nf1y · 27 Sep 2009 at 11:29

Windows only allowed so many people to use it as they only released a certain number of keys, maybe people downloaded it directly without requesting a key direct and that somehow others (a lot of other) are using the same key

thecremeegg · 27 Sep 2009 at 14:26

I had this problem, so ran the activation tool and put in the key I used and it shut up after that