Counterfeit Software?

[OldPavilionUser]

I have an HP 3115m. It’s the small HP Laptop with the 11.6” screen. I have had it for about 5 years and got it from a friend who bought it new from Best Buy. The machine has always Windows 7 on it from the time it was purchased. Recently the wallpaper disappeared and it is now telling me that the computer doesn’t have a genuine version of Windows 7. It says that I “might be a victim of software counterfeiting” and it gave me 30 days to fix it. These machines came with Windows 7, that doesn’t make sense to me. It says my computer will be disabled in 22 days if I do not resolve the issue. I put the information from the bottom of the computer in and it tells me that number isn’t valid.

The computer strangely did its own hard reset recently. I don’t know why it did that. I lost everything on it (but it was backed up). Then it seemed to run normally. I like this little machine and want to keep it. What do I do?

[Lil_Boy_Blue]

Hi

I would run, and print out, the results of running Belarc Advisor.

If the number is part of a Corporate/OEM system then it may be cancelled.

The OEM number is not valid on the Microsoft website...

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows7

Consider you may have some sort of ransomware on the machine.......

I use these...
https://download.cnet.com/Bitdefender-Antivirus-Free/3000-2239_4-75902507.html
https://download.cnet.com/Malwarebytes/3000-8022_4-10804572.html
https://support.kaspersky.com/viruses/krd18
https://usa.kaspersky.com/downloads/tdsskiller

A replacement W7 may be (possibly) obtained from here...

 as a backup?

If in doubt please ask.