Windows 10: Activate Watermark appears

An activate windows window has started to appear on the bottom right. It will go away after a restart but eventually comes back. I have dropped my Script Host but the URLs provided to reactivate led me no where. I haven't changed any hardware recently so I'm a little lost... any help welcome.

:)

 

Activate Windows Watermark

Hi Duncan,

The Windows activation watermark is usually appearing if the activation servers detect that a device is not activated. For further help with activating your copy of Windows 10, visit this
link. If the same issue persists after performing the troubleshooting suggestions on the link, follow these steps:

• Using Cortana, type Notepad and then click on Notepad (Desktop app).
• Type the following commands in Notepad:
  • @Echo off
    
    taskkill /F /IM explorer.exe
    
    explorer.exe
    
    exit
    
    
• 
  Save the file and name it as Activation.bat.
  
• 
  Change the Save as type to All files.
  
• 
  Locate the file, right-click on it and then choose Run as Administrator.
  
• 
  After running the file, restart your computer and then check if the same issue persists.
  

Let us know if further assistance is needed.

 

Activate Windows watermark suddenly appeared

No changes have been made to the hardware, and I've had this laptop for nearly two years. This morning, a watermark appeared in the bottom right corner of my screen telling me to activate windows.

On the activation page in settings it tells me I don't have a valid digital license or product key, with the error code "0xc004f012".

It also suggests that I try the troubleshooter below, which then tells me that troubleshooting was interrupted and gives the error code "0xc3f6501".

 

Watermark doesn't appear

Hi Hugo,

I am Dave, I will help you with this.

Activating Windows with a KMS key makes many changes to Windows and may have changed the registry, so that watermark will not appear, usually that would appear within 30 days after Windows has been deactivated, it it has been more than 30 days, that watermark will not appear, but that is no indication that KMS activation is still on your PC.