Windows 10: Win 10 No Activation

I have a Desktop PC which I upgraded to Win10 with no problems. I also have a Laptop, HP ProBook which was also offered to upgrade to 10 which I did and gave to my daughter.

She attends University away from home, and I never had a chance to look at the laptop much. She graduated this week and came back home and I took a look at My/her laptop and found out, much to my surprise that Win10 never activated on it.

The original account, in which the previous Windows version was upgraded is still present on laptop, (my account), so I tried to activate from there and it was not possible.

The original license is no where to be found on the computer, i.e. sticker, but I do have the DVD to upgrade to Win 8.1 from Win 7 that came with it, which I never did.

I thought of using the credentials of the account in my desktop to create a new one in laptop, Microsoft account, but I am reluctant to do so, as I don't know how that would impact my desktop.

So my question is:

How to activate Win10 on laptop at this point?. If a reinstall Win 8.1 will it recuperate my previous license, (doubt it). Can I use the Microsoft account in my desktop on laptop at the same time and try to activate?.

Is there any other way to activate? Calling Microsoft maybe...

Thank you very much in advance for your sugestions

:)

 

Windows 10 product key activation error code: 0xc004f050

Dan's answer is correct. Win 7 keys will not work with win 10 media

you have to first upgrade an activated qualifying product like win 7 the upgraded win 10 will then be automatically activsted and the MS activation servers will register that your hardware had had win 10 activated on it, you can then if you want

do a clean install of win 10 and your activation will be successful as the activation servers already know that win 10 had been previously successful activated on that hardware.

 

After clean installation windows won't activate... error 0xC004C003

I DID EXACTLY WHAT U SAID AND TILL NOW WIN 10 IS NOT ACTIVATED. I upgraded from Win 7 Pro to Win 10 Pro through the activation tool. After installation Win 10 pro was installed and activated. Then I downloaded the USB ver of Win 10, did a clean Install,
BUT WIN 10 IN NOT ACTIVATED. MS rep told me to wait 24-48 hours , not it have been 5 days . MY BAD MICROSOFT TO TRY YOUR **** 10 I WOULD STICK TO WIN 7 BUT 2 LATE

 

Check the OEM edition of the laptop.. run ShowKey first to check the edition - click the keys shown, to mask them ( then screenshot or save the txt file and paste the result here)

 

Does this means to reinstall Win 8.1?

Thanks in advance

 

Not necessarily.. we need to start from the beginning to get what is in the firmware first..

 

Running ShowKey gets me a "File System Error (-1073741819)" message.

Daughter says someone recommended to delete OldWindows folder to recuperate space on HD, so she did.

 

Hmmm.. That sounds ominous ...ShowKey uses Windows files ... if it fails it may be due to underlying system corruption... an upgrade install may be your first port of call..

Windows 10 - Upgrade Installation - Windows 10 Forums

BTW: Just to be clear... Windows.old has nothing to do with activation - so that, specifically, is not what broke Windows ... but the method may have corrupted other files...

 

Ok, may go that way. I already have a USB with recover options made for Desktop. Can I use it to recover in laptop?.

Version in Desktop is 1511 build 10586.316, version in laptop is 10.0 compilation 10240, what was originally installed and never activated.

Cheers

 

Yup, get a working Windows - hopefully before any one launched some funky 'let's delete sh!t' on it... then we can go from there...

 

Will let you know when done..

Thank you much for all your help

 

Edit: May not have answered your question properly - yes forget 10240... it's so not happening... go with 1511.

 

I have seen claims that you can clean install windows 10 and use an upgrade licence to activate it.

I guess this works fine because you can certainly upgrade from 8.1 previously upgraded from Windows 7 (done it myself).

I assume it works in a clean install, because MS only checks the key (as it would in an upgrade), but does not do any extra checks to see if you had an original full Windows 7 licence.

 

I did restore laptop to its original Win7 Pro from a recovery partition and it is activated. ShowKey displays this





I would think that my best bet now, is to download an ISO image of Win 10, install and hopefully activate it with my current valid key, but which one to use?

Regards

 

Installed key and OEM key should match? The "invalid key" doesn't look right either? If there is a readable COA sticker, use that key to activate Windows 10 on a clean install.