I've run into this problem once. Strange thing it was, it didn't even bother to ask me for the product key. It just attempted to activate "empty handed", as far as I was concerned, but failed with 0x8007007b
.
From here I successfully got to activate with no reinstalling, here is what I did, I hope it helps you:
tl;dr short version
you fire up a cmd.exe
with administrative privileges
slmgr.vbs /ipk Y0URQ-F4V0R-IT3QP-R0DUC-TQK3Y
to overwrite your product key (care to replace dummy key from this example).
If you got the same problem as me, next time trying activation should be successful!
note: you may also be interested in other options, if you give no parameter, it pops them up in dialogs. in particular, read the help for /rearm
, it promises to "Reset the licensing status of the machine
". I didn't try it.
(long) nothing to do this afternoon, let's read version
You may have tried to install windows over an old windows installation from which the installer pulled some old information out, even if you formatted, for example via the system partition used for booting.
There is a Microsoft tool called mgadiag.exe
, stands for "microsoft genuine advantage diagnostics". You can obtain version 1.9.0027.0
through a link I got from some less-important kb article 938720:
needs administrative privileges, when you run it, check out whether you have already a product key installed without you even knowing it on the windows tab.
Also check out the license type
field. it may stand for Windows License Type: KMS Client
. in this example, we have kms
, it is key management services
. it is related to windows volume licensing. if you are a home user, you probably can't or won't want to go with volume licensing, it may be there by mistake (eg. shop installed stuff previously, forgot to remove? etc.).
go to licensing
tab, check out Description
field. (note there is a copy
button in case you want to copy the information for asking help).
in the description field, you may see the initials KMS
.
if you are in the kms situation and want to get rid of it, try slmgr.vbs
what the licensig tab advises:
Please use slmgr.vbs /ato to activate and update KMS client information in order to update values.
it is a command line visual basic scripts that A.F.A.I.K. should come with the OS, built-in.
you can try and install a new product key. start a cmd.exe
with admin privileges: in start menu search box, type cmd.exe
, if you have an exact hit (you should), right click it, choose run as administrator
. now you can install a new product key:
slmgr.vbs /ipk Y0URQ-F4V0R-IT3QP-R0DUC-TQK3Y
(beware it is a dummy, invalid -I guess- product key used in the example, should anyone miss that)
Make sure, after you run it, to find the dialog where it notifies you about whether it succeeded changing the key. After I OK-ed that, I run activate again, and activation was successful now!
If you care to check, if you run mgadiag.exe
again, the key type now may have changed to whatever else.
If you feel curious, starting slmgr.vbs
with no parameters pops up possible switches in dialogs. In particular /rearm
sounds interesting, I didn't use it though.