Solved Unknown and Random BSOD

[boweasel]

So this 8GB Windows 7 tower is essentially a big paperweight....
My Dad will not put any more money into this. If the kid cut some corners on his install, who knows what else he was less than honest about.
And weirdly enough, even though this looked completely legit up to now, something I did has triggered an activation countdown. I have 29 days to activate, and of course it won't activate. I have to purchase a key or call Microsoft.
Sigh....

 

[Layback Bear]

If your hardware is any good it would be in my opinion worth a Windows 7 Home Premium which are about one hundred bucks.

A Clean install of Windows 7 is simple and doesn't take long.
Of course the Windows 7 Updates will take some time. Their will probable be over a hundred of them.
Their are some free Office programs that many use if your Dad needs one.

I would suggest that you take a inventory of your hardware, including your power supply and use that information for the next move.

Or you could use this as a good way to buy a new computer.

P/S
Many people get take with counterfeit products and don't realize it until later.

 

[boweasel]

I have another Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit tower. I can't remember the brand - I think it's an HP, but the motherboard went bad after about 13 months - just long enough to be out of warranty. It's just sitting in the attic gathering dust. I've already used the HDD in another tower I helped a friend fix. Can I use the product key from the sticker on the chassis of that long-dead computer to activate the OS on my Dad's PC?

 

[gregrocker]

Not if it's the license that came with the HP, which can only be used on the original motherboard that came with that PC.

You can apply for the program here which rewards those who prove they were sold counterfeit Windows 7 with a free copy if they participate in a piracy investigation: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/howtotell/cfr/report.aspx

You can extend activation a few times while you try to figure out what you're going to do by running as Admin the command slmgr /rearm.


One thing you can consider if you don't want to buy an $89 Home Premium license frequently offered by New Egg or Tiger Direct is to install the remarkably stable Windows 10 Technical Preview which I've been using for five months with almost no problems. It is pre-beta and won't be released til later this year, but it's free and will likely set you up for free and greatly reduced offers as we experienced here previewing Windows 7. You can also give Microsoft feedback on the new OS and they are actually listening and interacting with previewers.

This is in no way like the direction Windows 8 went trying to ape Ipad. There are a few useful apps (you can pop all your webmail into a nice Mail app, I find Weather, Skype and Calendar apps useful) but they are pushed over to the side of a Windows 7-like Start menu and can be hidden or uninstalled. Other than that it's almost just like Windows 7 except a bit smarter and faster.

A way to do this now is to shrink Windows 7 to Clean Install Windows 10 Technical Preview which will establish a Dual Boot menu at startup, then you can access your files from Windows 7 and compare the two as you install your programs and set it up. You could also try to upgrade Windows 7 to Windows 10 in-place which will save everything. You can get detailed help at Windows 10 Forums.