Windows 10: I had to reinstall Windows due to my PC not booting, and when I tried to reuse my product...

My PC wasn't booting, so I had to reinstall Windows 10 Pro. When I logged in to reinstall all of my programs, I noticed an overlay on the bottom right of my screen with the text "Activate Windows" and "Go to Settings to activate Windows." I got out my product key that I originally used to activate this PC and entered it into the settings, but it gave me a 0xc0000022 error. I am confident that this key is not being used on any other PC, and I have no other ideas as to why it wouldn't be working. Do keys stop working after a set time? I bought it only last year.

:)

 

How to go about building a tri-boot system?

i dual boot all the time, and going in to tri boot is easy.

step 1) partition the drive in to 3 partitions ( leaving 1 empty for the linux installer. )
step 2) install windows on the first 2 partitions.
step 3) install linux, and let it auto partition the remaining space. ( i recommend at least 30gb of space for linux, because it will make things a lot easier. )

step 4) enjoy.

 

How to go about building a tri-boot system?

Yeah, but he's throwing OS X in there. Not quite as easy to do, but not all that hard. Manual configuration of GRUB is necessary.

 

Unable to boot windows due to missing or corrupt files

Hi Callum,

There are several reasons why your PC isn't booting properly. One of which is because of broken boot data configuration components. To isolate the issue, we highly suggest you to boot your PC in Safe Mode. Given that you cannot access the setup screen, please
follow these steps:

Do the improper shutdown process:

• Turn on your computer.
• When the Windows logo is visible, unplug the computer. Do this thrice.
• At the 4th boot, simply wait for the Windows Recovery Environment window to appear.

After doing the improper shutdown process, please follow these steps:

• On the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot.
• Click Advanced options then, Startup Settings.
• Click Restart.
• Once the PC has restarted, press the F4 key to boot in Safe Mode.

Let us know if the resolution worked for you.