Windows 10: Windows 10 says it's activated with a digital license, but the "Activate Windows" watermark...

Years ago, I replaced my HDD on my computer, which deactivated my windows. With the help of customer support, I was able to reactivate it. However, since a recent update, the "Activate Windows" watermark appears on my screen. When I restart my computer, it goes away for a while but it always comes back.

However, in the settings in the activation menu, windows says that it IS activated with a digital license linked to my account. I can't access the activation troubleshooting tool because of that, it seems.

How do I fix this?

:)

 

Windows 10 Pro digital license - "Activate Windows" watermark


A few months ago I upgraded my Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 Pro via the free upgrade promotion. For the first few months I experienced absolutely zero problems. A few days ago, the "Activate Windows" watermark appeared on my screen. Upon checking my activation settings I got a notification saying that I don't have a valid digital license or product key - which makes no sense, since I got the digital license directly from Microsoft. Below is an image of the window.





The troubleshooter gave me the following message:





I also tried to reinstall Windows 10 Pro, but every time it stopped at 40% progress for the following reason:





Some other notes:

Before all this happened, I received a notification that my C: Drive needed to be repaired. I ran the drive repair utility which stated that the repair was successful. This happened about a day before I started having problems.

The only hardware change I've made since upgrading was a new GPU, with a clean install on its drivers.

I don't recall which (if any) Microsoft account I linked this digital license to. I haven't been logging into Windows with a Microsoft account.

My previous version of Windows was Windows 7 Pro 64-bit, which I still do have the product key for.

I received remote assistance from a Microsoft technician, but he wasn't able to resolve my issue. He did give me a Windows 10 Pro product key which didn't work when entered in activation settings.


Are my system files corrupt? Anything else I should try before attempting a clean install?

Thank you in advance!

 

Windows 10 Activation (Insider)

I did a full clean install of Windows 10 a while back and it will not activate. I didn't do a clean install from Windows 7/8/8.1 it was from Windows 10 (activated) so I expected it to activate just fine since it was fine before hand.

My Windows 10 license wasn't created from a previous Windows 7/8/8.1 key I got it from signing up to be an insider back in Nov of 2014. I installed a preview build on my laptop from the insider program and it worked just fine and it automatically upgraded to newer and newer preview builds and then to the full release automatically, fully activated and working fine. I did a full clean install not long ago (expect it to go through without issue since it was working before) and now it will not activate and I can't find any info on how to get it to activate and I can't seem to find the insider Windows 10 key.

Microsoft online support was useless and the gave me the toll free number to tech support.. I am currently on the phone waiting, they said it could be a 1hr 30min wait.. sigh.. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

Windows 10 Activation (Insider)

How long did you wait for activation?
When I re-installed with a fresh install... it took a few hours to sync and activate.
However, it did, finally, activate.