Solved Windows activation issues on fresh install of Win7 Home Premium?

[Darkstrike]

Hi all - I was given a slightly rough, but fully functional Acer Aspire E1-431 laptop by a friend. It's a bit rough, cosmetically, but mechanically it is perfect. I had a bit more RAM to give it a boost laying around, so popped that in and installed Win7 Home Premium 64-bit onto it.

All has gone well, but now that everything is installed, it's telling me the license key is invalid. As mentioned, it's pretty rough, so all the stickers are worn off the bottom of the laptop (manufacturer, warning, etc. including the Windows 7 Home Premium license sticker). I figured it wasn't a big deal because it had a running copy of Windows 7 Home Premium installed when it was given to me, so I used ProduKey to retrieve the Windows 7 Home Premium license key it was already running with the intent of using that key again when I reinstalled Windows and wiped their data from it.

Is there something up that the license key I pulled from a known running install won't reactivate on the same machine? All I did was pull the key using Produkey as the license sticker on the bottom is illegible, then reinstalled Win7 Home Premium from a verified DVD and re-entered the same license key...?


Any help is appreciated!

 

[Megahertz07]

The key you retrieve from a OEM computer can't be used. It's a generic key.
You have two options:
- If you still have the Recovery partition you can do a factory recover.
- If you can read the COA sticker license key you can insert on the installation you did. Look under the case and under the battery.

 

[Darkstrike]

Damn, no Recovery Partition, and the sticker is illegible....Linux Mint it is then! It's a spare computer to me as I already have a Win10 desktop and better laptop, so spending more for a new key wouldn't make sense at this point.

Thanks anyway for all the help folks!