Windows not genuine error after win7 ultimate reinstall and bios update!

[misflutterby]

bought pc secondhand about 18 months ago, originally installed with vista but had been upgraded by previous owner to win7 ultimate, activated and validated etc. worked fine for about 6 months, then had major permissions issues and as all hp system software was not present, no recovery manager etc, so decided to do reinstall. Copied all the drivers and updates from hp to a usb, then Downloaded win7 sp1 iso to usb and did fresh install. All went fine installed , activated, validated as genuine.

was working fine then one day started to get windows not genuine error.

window pops up saying  you may be the victim of counterfiet software,with 3 options (not word exact)

-get genuine windows, buy new product key

-change product key

-contact microsoft to resolve

first tried change product key as noticed product ID was now in system properties with the OEM code, instead of actual product key. Entered product key and get activation error 0xc004f063.

The software licencing service recorded that the computer bios is missing a required licence.

The more info link for possible resolution=

'You can also contact microsoft by phone to help resolve this problem' link takes me to Windows help and Support with CONTACT HP.

Did all that, they couldnt help me with the case at the time, since then i have remembered a few things that could possibly have made an impact,

-updated the bios from F:01 to F:19 with update from hp site after reinstall

-didnt reinstall the licenced microsoft office install that had been on the computer

-downloaded all missing updated from windows update, (there was ALOT)

-deleted 'old windows' file as it was taking up too much space

-when reinstalling and activating i changed the name of the computer and the name of the licencee of product to mine  (it had been previous owners)

As all these things were done around the same time, i dont know which if any is the cause, windows still worked fine for about 2 weeks after before getting the error.

I found a work around that was deleting a certain update , which put windows at 30 days for activation when trying to activate i got 'windows vista OEM marker present in firmware.'

however it did download microsoft security essentials, which you have to have genuine windows to get, and still have it working and updating regularly right now despite this error returning,

every link i try is no longer existent, there is alot of posts on the net about this, with the two 'fixes' i have seen, not being applicable for my computer as those permissions were already set as they were supposed to be.

Im at a loss, please can someone help

[WAWood]

@misflutterby

First off, since your PC came with Vista preloaded, HP can not help you with a Win7 license because HP does not sell Windows licenses.

Second, there is simply nothing that HP can do about an invalid license on a copy of Win7 Ultimate.  I can't tell from your long thread, but basically, you would have to purchase a legal license and the problem you will have with that, is if you are running a "pirate" version of the licensing tool, then the legal version might not activate properly.

Your best bet, really, would be to boot from Win7 media and do a clean-install of the OS, as this will erase the contents of the drive and create the proper licensing files.

[misflutterby]

Thanks for taking the time to reply, though based on your reply im not sure you understand my problem.

I dont want a licence or a key off HP, The copy of win 7 ultimate that the laptop has been upgraded to IS a genuine legal licenced copy. I have the product key for it and previous to needing to do a reinstall it was functioning, activated and validated as a genuine windows licence. It is NOT an illegal pirated copy. Before reinstall I was also able to retrieve the original vista home premium OEM activation code and product key that it came with.

The issue is to do with something that has changed within the system, that microsoft uses to identify systems or licences.

As a result of upgrade the laptop had no HP recovery or support software installed at all, no system diagnostics, hp advisor, hp update or easy set up. Really nothing at all related to hp. I realised this before reinstall and contacted hp about it and they sent me a link to download the system software to install along with windows.

I believe it is either something that has occurred from updating the bios, or the install of the system software from hp that has resulted in it not commumicating effectively with the licencing service from microsoft, or due to a microsoft update that was installed that has triggered it, as i said after reinstall windows did activate and validate as genuine with the product key and this error just came out of nowhere seemingly random,

[CherylG]

AS mentioned by WA above- HP can't and won't help with an OS other than what they installed on the laptop. Only calling Microsoft will possibly help.

I assume the previous owner gave you the official COA label with the license key? He didn't give you the dvd/usb?

Where did you download the Windows 7 iSO?

[WAWood]

@misflutterby

A Windows "Upgrade" per-se will not trash the Recovery, but reformatting the drive or messing with the Recovery partition WILL. And that is most likely what the original owner did.

The "system software" that you mention from HP is a bunch of utilities, and those would have no affect on the BIOS.

If you forced a BIOS update, that can result in very serious problems and render the PC unusable.

As to the license deactivation, there has been announced a recent problem with Win10 Pro versions where MS has suddenly marked copies as INVALID even though they are, and have been, valid for a long time.  This is a KNOWN problem with their activation servers and they are "looking into it". They have said nothing about this affecting Win7, but then, they said nothing when it happened about it affecting Win10, either.

Sorry, but if that is the case, there is nothing you can do until MS fized their side of the problem.

[misflutterby]

ok Then a waiting game I guess it is. Should I contact microsoft via phone also?