Replies

Surprisingly, the vendor got back to me within a couple of hours asking if I had upgraded the machine or done something else that might have affected the license. So it is possible that they might send another key. If they were just selling illegitimate keys found by a key finder utility, I am not sure why they would not have just emailed another already.

I have been told that you can use a BIOS key extraction utility to get a Windows 7 OEM license to activate on a VMware virtual machine. I have done this on physical hardware after doing a clean installs using standard Windows 7 installation discs made from images downloaded from Microsoft. I believe that this is more difficult using Hyper-V. I assume that there are others here more knowledgeable than I on this topic.

The vendor gave me good support. I am not sure why my Windows 7 malfunctioned. After I followed their directions it is showing completely verified and validated as genuine once again. Here are the directions that they sent me that fixed my problem. I thought that they might be helpful to others. With virtual machines I frequently revert back to my original setup and I assume that I went back to an image that was corrupt or not properly activated.

“Hi,

May we kindly ask you let us know if you have made a clean install using our downloader or did you activated a priorly installed Windows 7 Pro. If the latter is the case we would highly recommend checking the integrity of your system files. Here are the steps for a scan and reactivation:

1) make sure that you've an active internet connection
2) check date and time and correct if necessary
3) restart computer
4) start command prompt as an administrator
5) type sfc /scannow to scan the integrity of system files
6) restart the computer
7) start command prompt as an administrator
8) type slmgr /rearm to reset the expiry (important for reactivation)
9) restart the computer
10) start command prompt as an administrator
11) type slmgr /upk and press enter (this will uninstall the installed activation key from your system)
12) type slui 3 and press enter. A window will open, please enter your purchased activation key and confirm it. This will start the activation
13) type slmgr /xpr to see the activation status

If this should fail, please let us know with the error message

Please note that we do not constantly monitor our inbox. Therefore it may take up to 24 hours to get a response from us.

Kind regards
CHEAPERCODES”

I thought they were wasting my time especially after I did step 12 and it didn't work the first time. I wasn't able to cut and paste the number and I had entered one character wrong. I never had to wait more than 2 hours for a response even though I contacted them in the middle of the night.

This is their current eBay ad:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Windows-7-Professional-32-64-bit-Activation-Key/323416369252

I have no affiliation with them what-so-ever other than being a satisfied customer once again. There eBay ad says they are based in Germany. The email with the product activation key that they send you comes with a link to the installation DVD ISO file. But I used the media that I already had that came direct from Microsoft.

So my luck with Microsoft product activation keys purchased on eBay remains untarnished.