Windows 7: Installing Win7 Retail with OEM Key

Hello,

I have an Acer laptop that had 7 Home Premium x64 pre-installed. I got a nasty virus, so decided to restore my PC from it's hidden recovery partition(press F9 during bootup), and the partition was corrupted, so I had a bricked PC. I borrowed a retail Windows 7 Home Premium upgrade from a friend, used the product key on the sticker, and it did not work, so it went into "non genuine" mode. Acer is asking $20 for recovery media. Is this my only option?

No not necessarily. First, are you sure you entered in the product key correctly. Secondly, did you wait until you had no days left remaining on your trial before you entered your product key? Right after installing a fresh copy of Windows 7 you should enter in the product key right away.

yours is not a upgrade so it want work. you need a full retail version. i read somewhere on this site that you can download a legit full version but not sure where it was. maybe someone can recall it for you.


scrooge

If you installed the same version as on the COA sticker then it will activate. However it may require doing the quick robocall to exchange a series of numbers which update your hardware signature in MS Activation Servers.

Make sure you also have input the correct characters as it is very easy to transpose some.

Then if it won't activate online choose Telephone Activation.

Did you make the OEM manufacturer's Recovery Disks?



You can Order Acer recovery disks from here:
https://secure.tx.acer.com/RCDB/Main.aspx?brand=acer

Thanks everyone!
Scrooge (and gregrocker), it turns out that you were right, I mis-typed the product key(the sticker was a bit worn out), it is working now.

Be sure to back up the key before it becomes unreadable.

Good advice. I did that

Good advice. I havd done that.