Windows 7: power outage = not genuine

.....All of which says to me that your system was properly licensed, etc at that time - and that the detection is somehow screwed.

I can see nothing in the files that you sent which would indicate otherwise.

Hoever, there are minor differences in the detection lines - from teh top down....
If we now commpare that with an out-of-grace-period Pro TechNet

If you look at the end of the line, the error message for the known 'bad' one is there - while all the others show the expected 0x0 response of 'no error'

I would therefore begin to suspect something blocking the sppuinotify sevice, rather than the sppsvc, in your instance.

can you export the whole EVTX files for a failing system Application and System log? - I may be able to pull more detail out of that. (again, please zip and upload)

Ok, here are the full logs for this system

btw: There are no files or folders beginning with 7b in c:\windows\system32

Reading through your responses I've had a thought. Windows has definately lost its product key, because it is now in its grace period. I can fix that by re-entering the key again.

So what happened, the product key was entered, and valid, The power went out, the key got lost, windows was reactivated to stop the "not genuine" error, and re-entered the grace period because on this machine in this instance, I hadn't re-entered the product key.

However, windows should not lose or discard a valid product key just because it loses power.

If the 7b* files are missing, you have a MAJOR problem - and it's not reflected in the reports.
You probably don't have viewing of Hidden or System files enabled.
It'll take me a while to digest the eventviewer stuff - back later!

The Event logs you've given me show no signs of a power outage (and they appear to be for a Win2008R2 server, rather than Windows 7) - the system went into Notification at 05:22:32 on 11/8 after a normal reboot and was found to be out of grace period at 05:22:53. The license was installed at that time - it appears to be 180-day trial license (or perhaps KMS?)
There is an intriguing error - Event ID 6000 - at 05:23:16 (but I have no idea of the impact)


The initial install was apparently done on 1/8 - with a 10 day grace period.

Conclusion - this machine was never activated, and simply ran out of grace period

There are some interesting points in your response.

1. The machine is indeed Win 2008 R2. It's the only one that has not had it's product key re-entered because by the time I posted my question, I had already dealt with all the others. But Win 2008 uses the same kernel as win 7.

2. The machine powers off at 01:15am each day. It is never on at 05:22 am. I turn it on around 11am each day.

3. The machine was first installed in November 2011. It's key was entered in December 2011. It was activated successfully at that time. The grace period message that is displayed in the lower right corner stopped being displayed.

4. I added 2 new disk drives in July of 2012. At that time the boot drive was "cleaned" and reformatted. It has been reinstalled for less than 30 days. (Checked my invoice - purchased disks 9th July, and it was almost a week before I did install).

5. At that time I did not enter the key until I had the machine operational.

6. In late july, possibly very early August, I entered my Technet key and activated it.

7. At 18:46 on August 10th 2012 the power went off for 2 seconds. At that time 4 machines in the house rebooted. 2 of them lost their activation state in this event. This machine you have been looking at was one, my youngest son's was the other. This is not the first time this loss of activation state has occurred.

The rest you know...

So given the machine was reinstalled in mid July this year, and had the key entered within 14 days, how could it have been out of a 180 grace period?

The key used in the July install was of course the same as the one used in the November install, since they are multi-activate keys.

What am I not understanding?

Well, I'll just wait for the next power outage. They are pretty regular around here, and I'll grab the event logs as soon as the machines come back up. Nothing else can do until then.

Sorry - but the Event log shows a totally different scenario

There are NO events prior to 1/8 in either log.
The System log shows the initial installation of licenses - and no actiation.

lol..... Now where did I leave my hallucination medication

I write the date I install disks on the disks along with other details. I just pulled case off computer and it says I installed them on the 17th of July.

How does the theme to twilight zone go....

Either way, I'll have to wait until next time. I'm sure there will continue to be plenty of the same situation arising.

thanks for your assistance.

i still have the same issue and have tried the steps in this forum but all the same has anyone got a solution?

PLease start a NEW thread of your own, and include an MGADiag report.....

Please follow this tutorial and post an MGADiag report - then we can see what the problem is.

http://www.sevenforums.com/windows-updates-activation/234159-windows-genuine-activation-issue-posting-instructions.html


Please also state the Version and Edition of Windows quoted on your COA sticker (if you have one) on the case of your machine (or inside the battery compartment), but do NOT quote the Key on the sticker!
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/howtotell/Hardware.aspx