Windows 10: OEM Product key will not validate after Windows 7 crash and second installation of Windows 10 N

I have 4 systems - 2 Windows 7, 10, and OSX
Long story

1,I downloaded and installed Windows 10 in 2016 on my Windows 7 Home laptop.


2,My laptop crashed and could not self repair so I reinstalled Windows 7 from ASUS Recovery disks instead of go through the headaches of the Windows 10 installation again. I keep a clean computer and heavily component based firewall and this computer is off the internet most of the time.


3,In November 2018, I ran a hotfix from Microsoft to remove the impossible to remove Office 10 mounted partition and Office from installed program.

After the hotfix ran, it looked like everything was good. Then I ran cmd.exe to check my ip address for my off the internet local network. I got the infamous 0xc0000142 error. Not only on cmd.exe but other programs too.

I did not want headaches, so I went for a clean Windows 7 install, after the Microsoft Hotfix broke things.

When I tried to install from the OEM ASUS Recovery disks....hell no...I tried everything for two days...Safe mode you name it.
I could not find my Windows 10 disk I burned so I downloaded and made an ISO DVD and after a few hours, managed to get the ASUS to read it and install Windows 10 N.

Now it will not activate. This is an OEM installation and I installed Windows 10 before. I have another laptop with Windows 10.

Now what?
Am I going to be told that I have to pay again for Windows when that was installed on the laptop and Windows 10 was activated before?

:)

 

Installing Windows 10 using Windows 7 key

Nope, you need to install Windows 10 first and make sure the Windows 7 key is transferred to your Windows account after you've installed Windows 10 (not quite sure how that works). I missed the last step and I could not activate Windows 10 after a re-install... Microsoft seem to have done everything they can to make it a PITA. Also, it's technically too late to do this now anyhow, as the upgrade offer has expired. But KMSPico works quite well...

As for getting rid of Windows, delete the Windows folder.

 

Windows 7 OEM key

Hope this is not against the rules. If you do a clean install of Windows 10, it may, (has for me) accept a Win 7 OEM key and activate.

 

activate windows 7 oem key

Ive installed windows 7 using retail disk but with an oem key it worked fine you can always change the key from right clicking my computer-properties then selecting change product key