I have a Dell Latitude E6520 laptop that I decided to reinstall Windows 7 on. Before wiping the old installation, I grabbed info about the product keys from the registry using the NirSoft ProduKey tool (I thought this would be enough). One of the entries was "Windows 7 Professional" and it gave me a product ID and product key. I still have these.
So I wiped the old install and installed afresh from my Windows 7 retail ISO, selecting Windows 7 Professional to install. All went well until it came to product activation. When I try to activate Windows with that same product key, I get the error:
A problem occurred when Windows tried to activate. Error Code 0xC004E003.
I presume this is something to do with this laptop not just being licensed by the key but also by something in the BIOS? Or a subtly different OEM version of Windows 7 Professional as opposed to the retail version I installed? Am I screwed or is there any way I can license this?