Windows 7: 7 Ultimate Upgade won't activate

I installed Win 7 Ulitimate Upgrade on a fresh hard drive because I didn't want to chance losing my files even though I used Windows Easy (but ridiculously slow) Transfer. Followed the guides here for a clean install with an upgrade disc. Wouldn't accept product key during installation so I left it blank.

Once 7 was installed I went to activate it. When it came time to enter the Product Key I got the error code: 0xC004F061 The Software Licensing Service determined that this specified product key can only be used for upgrading not for clean installation.



Okay, I went the phone activation route, the automated activation failed so I waited for a live person. The CS said that product key was faulty and to contact the retailer (Amazon in my case) even after I explained what I did.

What now? XP was installed on this PC before I installed Win 7 RC but when I installed the RC I was using basically brand new everything (except memory and the case) because I was also building an OSX/Win 7 dual boot. I installed the same XP on progressively different hardware configurations so I assumed that I'd be able to do the upgrade to 7 and be able to activate it. Do I need to purchase the full version? If so, can I just enter in the new product key or do I have to go through the whole installation process again?

TIA!

You can look at these tutorials it should help.

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

Upgrade Install with Windows 7, Be sure to read the 'Tip' above step #1.

Thank you, but I followed those tutorials and now I can't activate Win 7. I think it's all the new hardware.

Check this out, it may help:

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/cle...rade_media.asp

If you clean install to a wiped HDD then you have to either do a repair install from the desktop (upgrade over itself) or a workaround given by Peregrine above to get it to activate: http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/cle...rade_media.asp

This is perfectly legal, the workaround is being given out by MS tech support.

What happened is that your installer when booted saw no previous OS so it rejected the Upgrade key. These workarounds correct for this.

I want to note though his registry hack has not been considered legal via Microsoft yet...

Paul Thurott also makes a note of this

Several users reported in the stickied thread here and elsewhere that MS tech support gave them that exact registry workaround.

All of MS clarifications I have seen have been to say that you need to meet the EULA of having a prevous qualifying OS whether or not it is installed.

But they have been cagey, knowing that clean installed Upgrade key enforcement is near impossible since an Upgrade is also the repair install, which is why the Vista "upgrade over itself" trick was never foreclosed by MS: it would cut off access to Repair install!

MS Tech Support probably gave them the fix but until an official "Yay or Nay" comes from Microsoft...it is still debatable...

I agree with your statements about the difficulty Microsoft would have in enforcing the upgrade keys/installs to the fullest extent

The Registry hack worked! The first time I saw that hack it used an abbreviation, HKLM, that I didn't realize was one so I couldn't find the correct registry entry. Now on to the kids' PC, it already has XP installed so I shouldn't have activation problems.