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#11
Probably cheaper to buy win7 , then there is a year to get the free upgrade, if wanted.
It shouldn't be necessary, they already have 7 licenses,though something has gone awry.
Probably cheaper to buy win7 , then there is a year to get the free upgrade, if wanted.
It shouldn't be necessary, they already have 7 licenses,though something has gone awry.
She is using Windows 7 Home Premium (well, before we installed 10). Either way, we're not paying for something we should have for free. Both of us qualified for Windows 10, and both builds show as genuine (of course now W7 is telling me it is not, but that's another story). I don't mean to sound pretentious, but if we're supposed to have these builds of Windows 10 for free, then paying for Windows 7 all over again (or paying for 10 for whatever reason) is not an option.
I asked for help in a way to recover the activation key for 7
I know there's a utility one can use to do it but can't think of it
I don't know of any utility, but I used a string of code to retrieve the product key from mine and my mom's computers. I grabbed my key when I still had Windows 7, in case I needed it when I got Windows 10 downloaded (I didn't need it though, because I was directly upgrading). I got my mom's key after Windows 10 was installed because I needed her desktop to open Notepad. However, the product key it gave us was invalid, according to Windows 10.
Maybe someone who knows code better than I can look at it. The string is:
Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))
Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
i = 28
Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Cur = 0
x = 14
Do
Cur = Cur * 256
Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur
Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255
Cur = Cur Mod 24
x = x -1
Loop While x >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput
If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then
i = i -1
KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput
End If
Loop While i >= 0
ConvertToKey = KeyOutput
End Function
If your mum did an upgrade , you need the key from windows.old\windows\system32\config\Software hive
I said it in my other thread, but I guess I forgot to say it in this one. The tag with the product key is too faded to read on my mom's, and is entirely ripped on mine.
Looks like what SIW2 failed to mention was that to read that section, you need to have that ProduKey program. When I follow that path, I just end up with a big wall of code I have no idea how to read (thousands and thousands of lines).