I'm pretty sure I'm screwed, but here goes anyways. I acquired a HP Elitedesk tower that came with no hard drive. I installed 10 off a flash drive but it doesn't activate. There is no COA since it was designed for Windows 8. But the sticker that is on it says that it was downgraded to Win 7 Pro. So if I'm reading it right, Windows 8's activation number would have been embedded in the BIOS, but it was downgraded to 7 so there is nothing in the BIOS, and the Win 7 number went with the old hard drive. I've verified that there's no number in the BIOS, RWEverything shows no MSDM table.
So what am I missing? Do I simply have a computer with no usable activation number? Any chance that talking with MS would help? Thanks!
You can run showkey plus from this forum to verify there is no product key in bios:
Showkey - Windows 10 blog
If there is no product key in bios, and there is no product key printed on a sticker/label - then you are going to have to purchase one.
You can run showkey plus from this forum to verify there is no product key in bios:
Showkey - Windows 10 blog
If there is no product key in bios, and there is no product key printed on a sticker/label - then you are going to have to purchase one.
I was afraid of that, thanks.
Does ShowKey display a Windows 7 marker? If so, send me this registry key and I'll see if I can get Win 7 Pro OEM back for you.I was afraid of that, thanks.
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINEHARDWAREACPIRSDT
There have been a couple of plot twists. I installed Windows 7 and it activated, (I had a product key to enter, it didn't auto activate) so I immediately used my media to do an upgrade to 10. Once I had 10 again, still no digital entitlement. In the past I've had problems doing the 7 to 10 leap too fast after installing 7, but thought since 7 was activated and I was doing an upgrade it would be OK. So I've rolled back to 7, planning to install some updates and give it time to settle before trying again.
As for ShowKey, I ran it when 10 didn't validate, and it showed 2 keys, one of which was the 7 key. The other looked like one of those generic Windows keys. It also had language about a marker in the BIOS.
Thanks for the reply, I'll post back.
Check if you selected the right Windows 10 version (Home, Pro, etc.) that is matched with your Windows 7 version.
Unless you have custom matching OEM install media for Windows 7, it will not auto activate. There is OEM info in the BIOS but no key is stored there. If you use stock install media a key will have to be entered manually to activate. Are you 100% sure your Windows 7 activated?
How did you do the upgrade? Some details may help sort that out.
When I installed 7 (Pro, and yes it matched with 10) I used my 7 All In One Flash drive and entered the product key after the fact, and it said it was activated. When I went to 10, I used media I put on a flash drive using the Media Creation Tool, and selected "upgrade", and "keep all of your files". I also then deferred entering a key thinking it would auto activate with digital entitlement.
An upgrade to a matching version of Windows 10 will not ask for a product key. You have a version mismatch or an edition mismatch. For example, you installed Windows 7 single language edition and you are trying to upgrade to regular plain Windows 10 (not single language). Or you installed Windows 7 Pro but are trying to upgrade with an old build 10240 Windows 10 edition that only contains Home.When I installed 7 (Pro, and yes it matched with 10) I used my 7 All In One Flash drive and entered the product key after the fact, and it said it was activated. When I went to 10, I used media I put on a flash drive using the Media Creation Tool, and selected "upgrade", and "keep all of your files". I also then deferred entering a key thinking it would auto activate with digital entitlement.
In your Windows 7, press win +R keys to open a run dialog. Run winver. Post the results screen here. Also open a "run as administrator" command prompt. Run:
slmgr /dlv
Post that result window here. Then we can figure out what edition/version of Windows 10 you need to install, or we might also be able to see something wrong with the Windows 7 activation that is causing problems - like it is activated with a Volume License Key.
