Windows 10: "Your Windows license will expire soon"

Looking this over from the beginning, this is what I think happened. Windows 10 Pro was installed with the "skip entering a key" option. That gave it the generic 3V66T key. It was not activated as it didn't have a Digital license. Then it was activated with a 10 Pro KMS key. Hard to say if that was an illegal or legal activation. Either way, its not legal for resale of that PC. Now, KMS activation will eventually time out and it will try to reactivate from the KMS server it was originally setup for. I think that where you were at. It was about to time out, tried to reactivate but couldn't connect to the KMS server. Activation would fail eventually, the message was just a heads up to check with your companies IT Pro.

That, or it was a cheated system and the Windows update undid the cheat. Replacing the modified files with the correct ones. Either way I would be contacting the seller. You should have got a Product Key either on a COA sticker, or embedded in the BIOS. We already established it wasn't in the BIOS.


If your system had been legally activated with a Digital License, it would have activated with the 3V66T key. All mine, for the most part do. I occasionally get an activation failure. Running slmgr /ato usually fixes that.

 

Hi Phil,

looking at that.

Original Edition: Win 10 RTM Professional Retail
a product of this type would have a unique key
IF PURCHASED from a shop, they MUST also provide the CD and packaging with the key on it

Original Key: *****-*****-*****-*****-3V66T
this is a generic key automatically created if NO key is entered on a clean install.
A new key will be required as this will never activate


Installed Key: *****-*****-*****-*****-T83GX
The new key entered by the shop to activate
in your case a GVLK, NOT a Retail key

Lets put it this way you, an individual, CANNOT buy a volume licence key, they are purchased by a company/college
They provide you the key which activates via thier company server NOT the MS server which is where a retail key goes to


further reading
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/...-10-activation

Roy

 

Hi,

Thanks all for your valuable input and I get it now that my key was a VLK rather than a genuine retail key sold for an individual. I will most definitely be trying my best to get a copy from said provider *Banghead

Just to add, he made the excuse yesterday that my Avast software may have caused a registry error? But clearly not as the above you said is clear and the key W269N-WFGWX-YVC9B-4J6C9-T83GX is clearly widely known on google as a KMS one *092

Phil

 

Give him or her, a chance to own up and make it right. But if they start making excuses and give you the run around, I'd tell them you are reporting them to Microsoft for selling Pirated software. And reporting them to the better business bureau.

 

Good support guys, I can't fault any of the comments made ... *Wink

@philx:
You do have an illegitimate installation of a "non-private" (for lack of a better term) licence that's intended for mass activation over a network (i.e. KMS server)
Without analyzing too much, your Diag. report shows "licenced" as Windows cannot (yet) determine the difference between an exploit and genuine KMS activation.
Windows has been trying to contact a KMS server for activation renewal since the 16th Sept (and not finding it 0xC004F074)
Grace Time Minutes: 13366 means it has 9 days to find it before it deactivates - also means it was initially activated 171 days ago.
Domain Joined: false (Should never occur with a genuine KMS activation)

The upgrade key would not be present were this a corporate install as those are done from a prepped image (with the KMS client setup key) after wiping the original disk. Thus almost certainly a conscious attempt to install an illegit licence.

Let us know what the seller has to say - any issues report here and we'll give you more ammo should you require.

Good luck, hope you succeed. *Wink

 

Is it activated now proper? *Smile (just curious!)