Need some Windows 7 activation help

[Eroo]

I purchased the Windows 7 Home Premium family upgrade pack about a year ago. It has 3 licenses to upgrade a previous version of Windows. All three machines had windows xp home and the installation and activation went through smoothly.

The problem is I recently changed my motherboard and SSD. I installed the Windows 7 and when went to activate it told me my license is only valid for an upgrade (There was no way for it to know I had windows xp before as its a completely new drive). I went through the automated phone process which is very long and at the end it tells me I am over my upgrade limit. I believe it is still seeing my old hardware as using a license.

Is there any way around this? Can I talk to an actual Microsoft person? all I get is the automated activation line.

[VirtueTT]

I have a windows 7 upgrade key for my laptop which i have done over about twice. Used it both times without any hassle. Upgraded from Vista.

What u mean is that u tried using the keys for fresh installs rather than upgrading from XP?

If that's the case i believe you'll have to re-install XP, then upgrade them to 7 from there. Trying to use the keys for a fresh install wont work because it requires a previous version of windows to be installed.

[TriniXaeno]

Not quite true, you can make a registry key entry on a fresh install of Windows 7 to enable the activation with the upgrade key. Of course you should only do this if you legitimately had a previous OS on that machine.

Here are the salient steps: Full article here

Workaround 3: Clean Install and Activate Windows 7 with MediaBootInstall Registry Hack

After booting up, ensure that no Windows Updates pending task which requires a system reboot to finish installing.
Tip: Normally, an orange-colored shield icon will be displayed next to Shutdown button in the Start Menu Power Button or at notification tray area if a restart is required.

If reboot is required, restart the computer to allow any pending updates is installed.

Run Registry Editor (RegEdit).
Navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE

In the right pane, change the value data for MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0.


Alternatively, just download and execute MediaBootInstall.reg to merge the value into registry.

Open an elevated command prompt as administrator.
Run the command below to reset Windows 7 activation status:
slmgr -rearm



Reboot the computer.
Run the Activate Windows utility (accessible from bottom section of Control Panel -> System and Security -> System, or type Activate Windows into Start Search), type in the upgrade product key and activate Windows.

http://www.mydigitallife.info/clean-install-windows-7-with-upgrade-media-and-product-key-on-formatted-or-empty-blank-hard-drive/

[Eroo]

Thanks for the info unfortunately its still not working. I believe its because it seeing the three licenses as already being used.

[Eroo]

Ok finally got thru with the activation by using the telephone activation. Apparently even though it is a family pack allowing to be installed on three PCs you still have to select 1 as the number of PCs it is installed on..

[VirtueTT]

Well thats good sir. Odd tho because i have re-used licenses before on the same computers. Phone tech support ftw!

[Zaid_ology]

phone support for that problem since ur using original windows ... once windows detects major change they ask for activation...