Problem
Valid product key is not accepted after clean reinstall.
What could be the reason of that and how to pass activation process ?
Goal
- install & activate "clean" windows 7 professional (no pre-installed vendor sw)
- avoid using windows 8.1 if possible
- avoid moving pre-installed windows 7 professional from hdd to ssd (lots of hp crapware)
Initial conditions
- hp elitebook 840 G1 laptop with legal & activated Windows 7 Pro installed
- only Win8.1 Pro DVD / restore & drivers dvds were provided
- no product key printed on the laptop case
- initial windows 7 installation shows its status as activated
What I did
- Manually install M.2 256 Gb SSD
- Get product key using NirSoft viewer
- Save activation status using "Advanced Tokens Manager" util
- Save complete original HDD image to external HDD
- Remove all HDD partitions
- Download Windows 7 Pro from MS and write it into USB flash
- Install windows 7, enter previously extracted product key
- Activation failed
- Use "Advanced Tokens Manager" util to restore activation status
- Got "activated" status from "my computer" view
- Install some win7 updates
- Activation status changed to not done
- Any further attempts to restore activation via util/by entering key manually have no effect
Note
- calling MS support is to be avoided if possible, it is quite expensive from my location
- therefore, downgrade from windows 8.1 requiring such communication is not preferred way as well