Product key not valid on installing.

Hello,

On hindsight this is not as simple as I first thought so bear with me....

Originally I bought Windows 7 Ultimate at a reduced price for pre-order even thouggh I knew at the time I didn't have a machine to run it.

I recently acquired a nice machine from a friend with SSD's and as I recently found the windows 7 by accident looking for something else I tought I'd use it, beleiving it to of not yet been installed and it came up key not valid.

Thinking about things before writing this post I seem to remember a few years ago before I lost my job, I upgraded one of my machines and I believe I may of installed win 7. The machine broke down after a few months when the motherboard and a couple of other bits went blink and having lost my job due to an acquired disability, I was down both mentally and financially, and remem ber dismantling the machine in about 10 seconds flat !!!!

So at best Windows 7 Ultimate with my product ID has not been loaded on a working machine for at least a few years and currently there is no known machine with it on, i am using Vista.....

I still havent worked due to disability and money is even tighter and I cannot afford windows 7 or a licence and I 'd really like to use it.

i cannot phone anyone due to deafness, i have been onto Microsoft but kept getting sent to the USA site then they would say they cannot help with a UK product and so I have gone round and round circles till i come here....

It used to be very much easier to fix an invalid key problem....any one help ??????

Hello Simon -

When is the key being rejected? If it is during install it might be because it isn't seeing an underlying OS when you boot the Win7 DVD as it must if using Win7 Upgrade version.

The solution to this is to leave the key blank during install, then afterwards do the quick registry workaround given in this tutorial to activation Win7 Upgrade version on a clean HD: Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version.

If this is not the issue then please explain when the key is being rejected and how you are trying to activate it. Most times this is due to incorrect character input so I'd check it over several times. When it's rejected is there a phone activation option? If so one of us might be able to help you by connecting via TeamViewer to do the phone part of it for you.

Hi,

Many thanks Gregrocker...should of read the stickies first eh....

Thanks anyway. I choose to do an install from inside the 1st install especially as I had'nt loaded it with progs took about 1/2 hour but worked faultlessly....

If you're saying you ran the Win7 installer from an OS instead of booting it, it shouldn't make a difference as long as the OS you ran it from was on C and Win7 overwrote it assuming C as well.

It will also put a windows.old folder in the root of C which will contain the entire previous install and can be deleted using Disk Cleanup or by rightclicking it.

No....

With the 1st install running, I put the disk in, started it and did an upgrade install ...... no .old file to delete.

OK I see that you ran the upgrade-over-itself workaround, not a fresh clean install.

More work, but Glad it worked for you.