Windows 7 OEM Problem

[DreadStarX]

Hey Guys,

It's been forever since I've been on here! I've been super busy in life, but that's for another day.

My buddy recently bought a laptop, the key is an OEM Key. He wants to format it because it's loaded full of crapware. I've never worked with OEM Keys before. There is no key on the bottom, it's been peeled off.

I used ProduKey to recover the key. I tried to use the SevenForums Tutorial, but it won't work for what I need.


I need the OS install that'll work with it. My person Windows 7 64bit Professional won't work. Also, the laptop has no DVD Drive, haha.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

My offhand guess is that Produkey recovered only the non-unique SLP key.

You may be limited to restoring to factory specs via a built-in recovery partition.

Or buying/begging for recovery disks from the laptop manufacturer.

And then trying to "decrapify" either of those recovered installations.

Or just trying to decrapify the current installation.

Or buying a new OEM Win 7 with a new OEM Product Key and then doing a clean install.

 

[gregrocker]

It explains in Clean Reinstall Windows 7 that the key audited from a factory install cannot be used to reinstall the OS, it must be the key on the COA sticker.

Otherwise as suggested you must use Factory Recovery. Did you delete or format the Recovery partition? If not you can manually set Recovery in a Dual Boot menu to Boot Recovery Partition using EasyBCD to overwrite the present install with one which self-activates but contains all the bloatware. Then you can recoup some performance by Cleaning Up Factory Bloatware. This may be good enough for you.

Once you have the factory install back by the above method or ordering its disks from the OEM TEch Support, there is a method to back up the factory activation file to reinstall it after a Clean Reinstall however we do not support that here by decision of the Admins. So you'll need to research it on your own.

 

[AddRAM]

Operating Systems, Microsoft Windows - Newegg.com