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clean install win 7 OEM Lenovo (downgrade from win 8) activation fails
Hello there,
I have some troubles installing or rather activating windows 7 pro 64bit OEM.
I pretty much did what is described here: Clean install of Windows 7 on SSD in ThinkPad T460. Stuck between rock and a hard place. - Lenovo Community
In short:
I bought a Lenove T460 this summer, which came preinstalled with windows 7 Pro. But with no COA (Certificate of Authentity) sticker anywhere, not even under the battery. The only sticker I found was a windows 8 pro one. So I assume that my laptop came with a downgraded windows 7.
Now I wanted to have a clean install of windows 7.
- So what I did first was to create a USB stick with the Recovery image, created via the Lenovo ThinkVantage Tool, to be able to restore if anything goes wrong.
- What I did next was to get a windows 7 iso via the WindowsIsoDownloader (e.g. from here: Microsoft Windows and Office ISO Download Tool)
- Downloaded the ISO and 'injected' the USB3 drivers successfully as described here: How to Install Windows 7 with only USB 3.0 Ports
- And to be able to choose the correct version of windows which was preinstalled I followed this link: How to Choose Desired Windows 7 Edition / Version During Setup? - AskVG
One of the comments there (from Gab) said:
"If you have a PC with an OEM product key on it set EditionID to the proper Windows 7 version, set Channel to OEM and set VL to 0.
This will install a perfectly legal operating system that passes activation. As a long-time service tech I've done it hundreds of times.."
So I set it to windows 7 pro with OEM on!
Afterwards I booted from this USB stick successfully, wiped the SSD clean and installed windows 7, leaving the activation process for later as I thought this would be done automatically (or with the key I extracted from OS beforehand). Unfortunately the activation process after installing windows didn't work. I also tried it with the phone activation, didn't work.
Then I read somewhere, that I would've had to run a programm on the preinstalled windows to extract a bit more information to be able to activate later on. (This is maybe more a windows 8 thing, but as this was a downgraded windows 7...) Didn't do this unfortunately. So I thought, well let's just restore the preinstalled windows from the recovery USB stick. Turns out this doesn't work anymore as I have also deleted the recovery part of the harddrive while wiping the drive.
So I called the Lenovo support if they could help me activating windows. They don't. I would have to buy the recovery DVDs from them to be able to do so.
I also tried to install Windows 8 as the sticker suggests this was the 'original' version of windows installed. Downloaded the Windows 8(.1) ISO put it on a USB stick, started the installation process, but wasn't able to get past the key entering bit of the activation, as I have no key. I thought this would be done automatically because it's stored in the BIOS somewhere.
My questions now are:
Should I be able to install AND activate Windows 7 or Windows 8 on the machine somehow, but did do it wrong so far?
Can I extract the additional data needed for the activation from the recovery stick created via the Lenovo tool?
I hope I could explain my problem and my steps so far well enough.
Thanks in advance for any hint!