Windows activation after going back to factory settings

[Haelerien]

Hello all,

About 3 years ago I bought my HP Envy 17 laptop at Vandenborre, a legit retail chain in Belgium. It had Windows 8 pre-installed. Over the years I upgraded to Windows 8.1 and later to Windows 10. It worked like a charm, up until last week.

I had a lot of problems, so decided to go for a reset to factory settings. I went through all the correct steps in order to do this. Now I am back with Windows 8, but it is a non-activated version. I would like to be able to activate it again, but it says my product key is not valid.

I contacted Microsoft. They said my product key was blocked for whatever reason. They advised me to contact HP to get a new Windows 8 Core OEM key.

Could you guys help me out here? 🙂

Thanks a lot in advance.

[lasvegaswireman]

This is NOT official HP Customer Support and I, as most other persons on this forum, do not work for HP. This is a peer-to-peer user supported forum for HP products. HP maintains no official presence on this forum and it is unlikely that HP will respond in an official capacity. Any reply from a HP employee represents their own opinion and not that of HP's.

Based on your post, there may be two ways to solve your issue...

1) Please see HP PCs - Windows 8 Product Activation... follow the instructions on activating Windows 8... if it continues to fail or you get error codes, please contact HP Support at http://www8.hp.com/us/en/contact-hp/ww-contact-us.html to resolve this issue.

2) If you intend to upgrade to Windows 10 again, you can bypass the installation of Windows 8, 8.1, etc. Please see https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki/windows_10-windows_install/how-to-download-official... and download the Windows 10 Media Creation Tool at  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10. You can then use this tool to create a DVD or USB stick of the Windows 10 installation Media. When you start the installation of Windows 10, don't enter a PID... just skip that step. Windows 10 will automatically activate based on a token of your previously activated Windows 10 install. Windows 10 specific drivers for your computer can be found at HP ENVY 17-j000eb Notebook PC - Windows 10 (64-bit).  

If you have any further questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

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[Haelerien]

Thanks a lot for the help, I really appreciate it. I will try it out tomorrow.