Product Key Sticker Question

Some nice work in this thread, guys
(Your COA Key apparently would not work? - when did it give an error message?? During Key input or after - during the Activation attempt? What error message?)
Putting together some standard posts, just for info....

Activation Computers that come pre-installed with Windows from large manufacturers usually come with two Product Keys

OEM SLP: This is the key that came in Windows (from the factory). It works by connecting to a BIOS flag (the SLIC table) found only on computers from that Manufacturer. It also checks for the existence of proper matching licenses in the OS itself. Once it sees both, it self-activates every time the machine is rebooted.

COA SLP: This is the key seen on the sticker located on the side, bottom or in the battery compartment of your machine. This key is for use if the OEM SLP self-activation stops working for whatever reason.

The COA sticker defines the licence available for re-install, but the trick is to ensure that you read the sticker properly...

0xC004F050 usually means that you've misread a character - either C/G/6 or B/8 or Y/V are the most common, an O/0 is almost always a Q

Note that the following characters cannot be used - A E I L N O S U Z 1 0 - so don't bother trying unless you like the noise it makes :)

The Dell Recovery media - assuming the BIOS SLIC table is OK, which it seems to be, from the above results - will allow a clean reinstall of the original OS without the need to input any Key, as it contains the proper certificate/license to match the SLIC table.

It's all too common for 'second owner' machines from eBay to arrive with bogus installs - I have always been dubious of ANY machine sold with Ultimate supposedly installed that doesn't come direct from the manufacturer, as it's an obvious way to increase the sale value of the machine without expense (some don't even go to the trouble of installing the hack, they just leave the system Unactivated )
Pawnshops are another common source of such installs - and they really should know better.

Yep - the following shows that your SLIC table is present and correct for Windows 7 (but not for which edition)...


OEM Activation 2.0 Data-->
BIOS valid for OA 2.0: yes
Windows marker version: 0x20001
OEMID and OEMTableID Consistent: yes
BIOS Information:
ACPI Table Name OEMID Value OEMTableID Value
APIC DELL WN09
FACP DELL WN09
HPET DELL WN09
MCFG DELL WN09
SSDT AMICPU PROC
SLIC DELL WN09
OSFR DELL M08

If there'd been errors in any of those lines (highlighted lime green ) then it would have raised warning flags.

You should be good to go with the proper Dell recovery media.