Windows 10: Reset PC, removed Win 7 to Win 10, now facing activation error

Hi, i'm facing activation issues as the title suggests.

What I did was upgraded my Win 7 to Win 10 via the bottom right prompt. Activation successful but some things were not working correctly. So I then did a reset PC from scratch and removed everything. PC started with Win 10 but now not activated. I've tried clicking "Activate now" over the span of 4 days with still an error message to try again later. I've also tried inserting my Win 7 product key but it won't work. Now I'm trying to go back to previous build in attempts to again upgrade from there but it says no other operating system installed.

What should I do to activate my Win 10? I like the interface but this issue is super frustrating!!

:)

 

Reverting to Win 7 errors - error message "there was a problem restoring/resetting your pc"

Original title: Reverting to Win 7 errors

I tried to revert to win 7 using win 10 rollback option during boot. Pc rebooted and started configuring, Got an error message in win 7 that said There was a problem and cannot restore my system. Rebooted and boot file seems damaged and startup recovery
can't fix it. I had created a restore usb in win 10 right after completing the upgrade but I've tried to use it and after completing the progress counter now I get the same error message "there was a problem restoring/resetting your pc" but in win 10. If I
remove the usb key I will get an error that says that there's no operating system.

 

Activation help

This pc originally had a win 7 x64 home install I then upgraded it to win 8 pro. last week got the win 10 upgrade which came down as 10 pro. Then edge got hijacked by malware so I figured I'd do a clean reset from settings.

But before that I used an app to extract the new win 10 key from the registry just in case I needed it. As well as I still have my win 7 oem key and win 8 pro key.

After attempting the reset I was presented with a BSOD complaining about a partition.

I then proceeded to do a clean install from a win 10 USB flushing out the old partitions on the primary disk in the process and skipping the key steps as recommended. After install and connecting to the net with my live account and merging my it with my
local account I was looking at a Win 10 home build that could not activate with error code 0xC004C003

My Microsoft account now shows two PC names for this PC, the old one as a win 10 pro and a generic PC name generated during the clean install that shows as win 10 core ??.

Angry that a win 10 pro usb and installed home I then proceed to try and activate with the win 10 key I had extracted as it would not accept my win 7 oem or win 8 keys. The win 10 key upgraded me to Win 10 pro however it still remains un activated with the
same error code.

I have changed the PC name back to the original PC name but the MS account still shows the generic one.

Further to this the activation section does not give me an option to Call to activate.

I'm assuming MS are using the live account and the motherboard GUID to determine if it's an activated PC, if so then why is this failing.

 

There have been some people whose activations did not get saved correctly on Microsoft activation servers. You pretty much have 3 choices:

Reinstall Windows 7 and do the upgrade again. Hopefully the activation will save to the activation server properly.

Download and install/upgrade Windows 10 build 10565 and attempt to activate that by entering your Windows 7 Product Key. Microsoft included the ability to accept Windows 7/8/8.1 product key in build 10565.

Call Microsoft and explain your situation and hopefully you will get someone on the phone that will activate it for you.

Seems like once you get a good solid activation saved on MS activation servers there aren't any problems in the future.

 

Thank you NavyLCDR. I will try opt# 2 and update how it goes.

 

Keep in mind, that build 10565 is an Insider Preview build. The current Consumer build is 10240, last I checked. Just so you know what your installing.

 

Oh, great that I haven't done it. Thanks alphanumeric!

 

I mentioned it in case you don't want an Insider build. Also as far as I know, 10240 will not accept Windows 7 or 8 keys on a clean install. Not yet anyway. Rumor has it that could happen, next week some time. Might want to wait a bit and see what happens. If they release new ISO's that accept those keys your problem is solved, you will then be able to clean install the consumer build 10240 and activate with your Windows 7 key.

 

Really?? (Not disputing what you're saying; just amazed that this will be possible).

Any way to know that MS HAS included this feature in a new ISO -- without doing the clean install?

 

So we assume, if the functionality is present, once that update is applied we can try "change product key" and it should accept our Win7/8 keys.

 

If they do it, I don't think it will take long for word to spread. Somebody here will test it pretty quickly I would think. Right now its a "Rumor has it" deal. As far as I know it's already been done in build 10565.

 

As previously mentioned you can clean install 10565 and activate it with a 7 key. Once this is done you can clean install 10240 (RTM version) and skip entering the key and it remains activated.

I've done this and it works fine.

 

Ah, OK didn't think of that, a bit of work but should work.