Windows 7 hanging AND getting Not a genuine version if networked

I started hitting this problem last week. My PC just freezes. Can't do anything. I have to do a hard reset with the power button to reboot. Once I've rebooted and logged in I have a few minutes at best before things will freeze up again. This is consistent. It is not always consistent that I can power up. Sometimes I also get the "Not a genuine version of Windows" message in the lower right corner. Getting this message also started last week with the freezing. I suspect some corruption has occurred. This IS a legitimate version of Windows. A friend who worked for Microsoft bought it for me from the company store. I tried running in Safe Mode with Networking but it also freezes. If I run in Safe Mode without networking then I can run just fine. Any help is much appreciated. If I can provide any debug data to help I'll be glad to but I need to know what to run and how to capture it. Luckily I have a 2nd PC in my study also running Windows 7 but the wife wants it back. Thanks!

I've started a System Restore but I'm worried my PC has frozen again in the middle of it. Should I be concerned?

bigmck said:

UThorn said:

I've started a System Restore but I'm worried my PC has frozen again in the middle of it. Should I be concerned?

It shouldn't take more that five minutes if that long. It is best not to Power Down during a System Restore, but if it freezes, just Power Down and give the System Restore another try.

First attempt wasn't successful. Trying again with a different restore point but that one has been running at least 10 minutes already and still going. I literally have maybe 2 minutes normally before it freezes. And that is at best.

Three system restores later and it's still freezing. Any help is much appreciated!

My PC freezing does not occur when networking is disabled in Safe Mode. If I run Safe Mode with Networking it freezes. I recall seeing somewhere (might have been on Microsoft's website) comments about the "Not a genuine version" in the lower right hand corner being related some register keys and somehow network related. Is any of this familar to anyone?

What exactly do you mean by "monitor the temperatures"? I assume you're expecting a heat spike around the time my PC starts to freeze up. Yes, no, maybe? I have to admit I don't understand how this might be a heat issue but I'll download the app and see what that shows.

I am not getting a popup message. Occasionally, rather than actually booting up into Windows I will get a black screen with the "Build 6701 Not a genuine version" message in the lower right hand corner. When this happens I hard reset and it will usually boot up into Windows but the freeze after appx 2 minutes is consistent.