Windows 10: Sorry ... yet another windows activation question.

I got some useful help here recently about how to update an old toshiba laptop, but before I got around to doing the update my daughter decided she wanted to update her Samsung series 9 laptop from win7 home premium to win10 home. I was helping her with that when a circuit breaker tripped and we lost power. (The battery needs replacing obviously). It crashed the computer in a bad way. I tried doing a factory reset, but it said that the recovery partition wasn't valid. Samsung support said my only option was to bring it to the nearest service center (800mi away) and pay to have the disk restored (since it is now out of warranty). But we didn't have time for that, so I did a clean install by booting (UEFI) to a win10 home install USB stick that I created with the media tool. (I probably should have restored the C drive from the last image backup on the external USB drive made with Acronis, but I didn't think of that). Windows 10 is now running great but it won't seem to activate. Perhaps I should have known this, but I thought people were telling me that microsoft now allows you to use the old windows 7 key to activate windows 10. This was an OEM windows 7, so maybe not?? Before starting I had saved the windows key using Belarc Advisor, so we have that (The key must be saved in the bios). We even tried entering that product key manually, but windows 10 still does not activate. (It gives an error code 0x80041023). I suppose we could still go back to the last win7 image, but there is no time for that since she is on a plane tomorrow morning to go back to school). Also she has already spent too much time configuring win10 to give up on it now. So will we be forced to pay the $120 ransom to microsoft to get a valid license or is there some other way? Also is it really worth $120 to activate? Can you just run it for as long as you want without activation?

Thanks in advance for any advice you can offer.

~Paul

:)

 

yet ANOTHER Speech Recognition Question

I just tested WSRProfile.exe with Windows 10 and it works perfectly. You can CLICK HERE
to download WSRProfile. When backing up, name the file and make sure to Browse to put the file in a folder you can find it. In addition to restoring on the original computer, the file is transportable and can put your profile on another computer
if the WSRProfile tool is on the other computer.

Marty Markoe, MyMSSpeech.com

 

Yet Another Temp Folder Question

I am not so much against CCleaner, it's the fact many users use it, without really knowing what they are doing and I have seen some tragic results of this. It is mainly when they use it alter/modify the 'Registry' and they fail to back up the registry before
carrying out actions recommended, as you say you have been using it for years, well goodluck, make sure you maintain your backups & restore points.

Any further questions, happy that I have been able to assist?

If you want locate a post you have submitted > L/click on profile name at top of page > select 'My Profile' > select 'Activity' > all your posts will be shown > select as normal.

 

I don't have an answer for you, but I have a question :
You said " Before starting I had saved the windows key using Belarc Advisor"
Why ? This is a laptop with OEM Win 7 Home Premium. The product key has to be at the bottom of the laptop. Please have a look.
If you find the key at the bottom of the laptop, compare that with the one retrieved by Belarc.
If they do not match, use the one at the bottom of the laptop for activation.

 

Hi, pmennen.

Another possible root of your problem may be that your USB stick has WIn10 build 10240. I believe the ability to directly enter your OEM Win7 key for a clean install didn't come about until build 10586. Do you know which build is on the USB or when you downloaded it?

 

Windows 7 product keys are NOT stored in the Bios. the only 'personal' Key is on the COA sticker. In your case, the key is to be found at the bottom of the laptop.
In your case, the key which any keyfinder finds is NOT for activation.
It is probably an OEM_SLP Key - which is only valid when used with the proper manufacturer's Recovery media, or it is a key computer manufacturer used for mass production.

 

.............If that's the case, all she has to do is enter that key, right?

Yes. That will be her true Win 7 Home Premium product key.

 

OK, thanks for answering. Then if you downloaded the iso the stick was created from only a few days ago, I believe that eliminates the possible problem I suggested. Although it's probably of no use at this point, you can confirm the version (among various ways) by checking the Details tab of the properties of setup.exe in the root of the USB and look at the Product Version field.

As far as your product key sticker, have you removed the current battery and made sure it wasn't simply placed under the battery on the laptop chassis surrounding it? I'm not saying you're wrong about it being on the original battery itself but just thought I would have you check a location which I've heard of as an alternative to outside bottom of laptop. Seems not optimal if they had placed it on a battery that wouldn't necessarily outlast the laptop - just a thought.

 

The way to tell what version of Windows 10 installed is just to run Winver. Just type Winver in search. That doesn't help much, though, if there isn't a Windows 7 product key to enter to activate Windows 10.

 

Check out this vid: Samsung Series 9 2012 Unboxing - YouTube (..at about 1:10 min)

Appears the COA sticker is on the power adapter...

 

Doh! I just realized I made a set of off-base assumptions about OP's daughter's laptop. I took "brick" to mean battery but that was my mistake. - I guess I pictured "old Toshiba laptop" from first sentence (with a removable battery) and missed their daughter's being a Samsung Series 9 (a much thinner laptop).

My bad on that.

 

No prob. ... just, it's the first time I came across a COA stuck there... or I've been under a rock.

 

Well it turns out that there is no windows sticker on the A/C adapter like there was on the one seen in the unboxing video. I told my daughter to look under the battery as one poster suggested. I realize that is a long shot but it is worth a try. It might take her a while to find a screw driver small enough to remove the tiny screws used to secure the battery. If that fails I guess we will have to go back to Samsung, although I have found they are not that helpful for things like this on computers that are out of warranty. I've seen that you can buy windows 7 CD keys on ebay for far less than it would cost to buy a windows 10 license. Would that be a reasonable thing to try if we simply can't find the CD sticker?

 

...... I've seen that you can buy windows 7 CD keys on ebay for far less than it would cost to buy a windows 10 license.

I would seriously think twice ( maybe 3 times ) before taking on such an adventure.

I am NOT saying sellers in eBay are crooked.
I once bought a Win 8 Pro upgrade version from eBay for quite a bit cheaper than buying from Retail stores.
It comes in a sealed box with 2 dvds and the product key. It is 110% legit and genuine.