# Win 7 unactivated itself?



## Fitseries3 (Apr 4, 2011)

i have a legit full retail copy/license of win 7 x64 pro and its on my main pc...

i activated it just fine and now, a few days later, it says i cannot use this key on this machine. this is the first time the key has been used and i have done all windows updates already. i havent changed any hardware other than video card. 

anyone seen this before?

i guess my only solution is to contact MS?


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## Wrigleyvillain (Apr 4, 2011)

Thats wierd for sure, especially if it's the first time you've used it. Yeah guess you gotta call them. Always fun. There's a separate Activation group there. I've been hung up on by them before!


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Apr 5, 2011)

You running MSE?

Also you might want to check around and see if that's happened to anyone else doing blck overclocking. I've seen people report it corrupting windows installs. (talking SB here)


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## qubit (Apr 5, 2011)

I've never seen any Windows unactivate itself, unless significant hardware was changed. I've seen Office do this temporarily when it got confused, but not Windows.

You didn't do a BIOS/firmware update on any devices did you? That will also trigger a reactivation.

At worst, you'll be able to do a phone reactivation just fine; the whole system has been reduced to just an inconvenience nowadays and doesn't actually stop you running it on more than one PC - Microsoft trust you to be truthful. Just answer the auto questions that you have a retail copy on one machine and you'll get the activation key.


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## Wrigleyvillain (Apr 5, 2011)

Why did you ask if he's running MSE?



qubit said:


> the whole system has been reduced to just an inconvenience nowadays and doesn't actually stop you running it on more than one PC - Microsoft trust you to be truthful. Just answer the auto questions that you have a retail copy on one machine and you'll get the activation key.



That's not my experience; you can't have more than one PC "active" at a time. In fact, this whole system has given me more trouble lately than it ever did before including forcing me to install XP or Vista first as I have an Upgrade disc which was never necessary until recently for me. And support gets you nowhere; you just get the script from them. Why I ended up getting hung up on.


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## HammerON (Apr 5, 2011)

I had this problem a couple times when I used to overclock one of my old i7 920 rigs. It appeared to happen when the system would boot into Windows 7 but really wasn't that stable. Once I clocked it back down to 4.0GHz or so Windows would show all is well again.
Don't know if that helps, but there ya go.


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## LAN_deRf_HA (Apr 5, 2011)

MSE downloads the Microsoft authenticity updates regardless of your update settings, even if you choose to hide the update. While rare, it can produce false positives. Which is mainly why Microsoft makes those updates unchecked by default, but it seems the MSE team took it upon themselves to use a radically different policy.

It’s bullshit like that that now makes me recommend MSE to no one, as a program should never override your windows settings. It shouldn't even have that ability.


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## qubit (Apr 5, 2011)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> That's not my experience; you can't have more than one PC "active" at a time. In fact, this whole system has given me more trouble lately than it ever did before including forcing me to install XP or Vista first as I have an Upgrade disc which was never necessary until recently for me. And support gets you nowhere; you just get the script from them. Why I ended up getting hung up on.



I wonder if they treat customers differently in different countries? In the UK it's totally defanged. The first activation works over the internet, subsequent oned require an automated phone call, you don't even have to speak to anyone any more.

I've heard that they've been forced into this, because they got taken to court once by someone who had legal clout who couldn't activate his legitimately purchased copy of Windows due to hardware failure/changes.


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## stinger608 (Apr 5, 2011)

I had a pal that this happened to for no real apparent reason. All he did was go back through the activation again and it was fine. About 3 or 4 months later the exact same thing happened to him again. Did the same thing and it activated just fine. Now that has been several months ago and it has not happened since. 

The bottom line is, just go to systems, and do the activation again and see if it activates okay.


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## DannibusX (Apr 5, 2011)

stinger608 said:


> I had a pal that this happened to for no real apparent reason. All he did was go back through the activation again and it was fine. About 3 or 4 months later the exact same thing happened to him again. Did the same thing and it activated just fine. Now that has been several months ago and it has not happened since.
> 
> The bottom line is, just go to systems, and do the activation again and see if it activates okay.



This.  I've had Windows 7 deactivate itself on me once.  I did have to call Microsoft and use their activation help line though, which was pretty lame.  It didn't take long though.


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## Frick (Apr 5, 2011)

If internet activation does not work, try phone. Not the activation helpdesk but just phone activation.

The only time this happened to me was when I reset the BIOS and the date was wrong.


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## stinger608 (Apr 5, 2011)

Good point Frick. Be sure to check the date on your system Fit!


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## stinger608 (Apr 8, 2011)

Bump, and hey Fit, did you get it reactivated bro?


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## suraswami (Apr 8, 2011)

Frick said:


> If internet activation does not work, try phone. Not the activation helpdesk but just phone activation.
> 
> The only time this happened to me was when I reset the BIOS and the date was wrong.



+1 on the date.  Check the system date.  I have messed with this many times and Windows Activation freaks out.  Fixed the system date and all it good.


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## Loosenut (Apr 8, 2011)

culprit might be kb971033 if it was added to W7 SP1


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## KainXS (Apr 8, 2011)

had it happen once after a bios update, all you have to do is call and tell them


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