Windows 10: Another Activation Problem

I'm pretty sure I'm screwed, but here goes anyways. I acquired a HP Elitedesk tower that came with no hard drive. I installed 10 off a flash drive but it doesn't activate. There is no COA since it was designed for Windows 8. But the sticker that is on it says that it was downgraded to Win 7 Pro. So if I'm reading it right, Windows 8's activation number would have been embedded in the BIOS, but it was downgraded to 7 so there is nothing in the BIOS, and the Win 7 number went with the old hard drive. I've verified that there's no number in the BIOS, RWEverything shows no MSDM table.

So what am I missing? Do I simply have a computer with no usable activation number? Any chance that talking with MS would help? Thanks!

:)

 

Can I activate my OEM license to another system if hardware problem occurs?

can I activate my oem license to another system if hardware problem occurs

Original subject: activation

 

I can't re-sign up to the Windows Insider program

In the end, I did a clean install to remove this problem. Which created an activation problem , but that's another story!

 

You can run showkey plus from this forum to verify there is no product key in bios:
Showkey - Windows 10 Forums

If there is no product key in bios, and there is no product key printed on a sticker/label - then you are going to have to purchase one.

 

I was afraid of that, thanks. *Sad

 

Does ShowKey display a Windows 7 marker? If so, send me this registry key and I'll see if I can get Win 7 Pro OEM back for you.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\HARDWARE\ACPI\RSDT

 

There have been a couple of plot twists. I installed Windows 7 and it activated, (I had a product key to enter, it didn't auto activate) so I immediately used my media to do an upgrade to 10. Once I had 10 again, still no digital entitlement. *Sad In the past I've had problems doing the 7 to 10 leap too fast after installing 7, but thought since 7 was activated and I was doing an upgrade it would be OK. So I've rolled back to 7, planning to install some updates and give it time to settle before trying again.

As for ShowKey, I ran it when 10 didn't validate, and it showed 2 keys, one of which was the 7 key. The other looked like one of those generic Windows keys. It also had language about a marker in the BIOS.

Thanks for the reply, I'll post back.

 

Check if you selected the right Windows 10 version (Home, Pro, etc.) that is matched with your Windows 7 version.

 

Unless you have custom matching OEM install media for Windows 7, it will not auto activate. There is OEM info in the BIOS but no key is stored there. If you use stock install media a key will have to be entered manually to activate. Are you 100% sure your Windows 7 activated?
How did you do the upgrade? Some details may help sort that out.

 

When I installed 7 (Pro, and yes it matched with 10) I used my 7 All In One Flash drive and entered the product key after the fact, and it said it was activated. When I went to 10, I used media I put on a flash drive using the Media Creation Tool, and selected "upgrade", and "keep all of your files". I also then deferred entering a key thinking it would auto activate with digital entitlement.

 

An upgrade to a matching version of Windows 10 will not ask for a product key. You have a version mismatch or an edition mismatch. For example, you installed Windows 7 single language edition and you are trying to upgrade to regular plain Windows 10 (not single language). Or you installed Windows 7 Pro but are trying to upgrade with an old build 10240 Windows 10 edition that only contains Home.

In your Windows 7, press win +R keys to open a run dialog. Run winver. Post the results screen here. Also open a "run as administrator" command prompt. Run:
slmgr /dlv

Post that result window here. Then we can figure out what edition/version of Windows 10 you need to install, or we might also be able to see something wrong with the Windows 7 activation that is causing problems - like it is activated with a Volume License Key.

 

K. So you should be upgrading to Windows 10 Pro. Not Single Language, not "N" edition, just plain Windows 10 Pro. The current download option to get that from Microsoft will be just plain Windows 10 with nothing else behind it. That will get you both Windows 10 Pro and Home versions.

What I would do from here is get a Windows 10 ISO:
Windows 10 ISO Download - Windows 10 Forums

I prefer option 1 from above.

Mount the ISO in Windows 7:
How do I mount iso image file in Windows 7?

Grab the genuineticket.xml file and save it to a USB thumb drive or other external storage device/location. Do steps 1-6 here and stop:
Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forums

After that is done, then run setup.exe from the mounted ISO file from inside Windows 7, it should upgrade to Windows 10 Pro with no input from you asking for a product key or which version you want to install.

NOTE: because the Windows 7 product key installed is OEM:SLP, it cannot be entered manually to activate either Windows 7 or Windows 10. That's why you want to grab the genuineticket.xml file (for future use if something goes wrong), and want to do an in-place upgrade. You can just move onto a clean install using the genuineticket.xml file if you want to, but if it were me, I would attempt to do the in place upgrade first because if the in place upgrade asks you for a product key, you probably have the wrong edition of Windows 10 downloaded.

 

Looks good... re-arm seems a bit low - but that's irrelevant and should not affect the Win 10 Pro upgrade.

We need to see the same on Win 10 though. Post those screenshots so we can compare wot's-wot.

Edit: Actually I need some to test WDT, so this may be a good opportunity to test that - post a diagnostic report.

 

Does anyone offer genuineticket.xml as a download?