hard drive - Reinstalling OEM Windows 7 Without Original Disc?

07
2014-07
  • Chris

    My grandfathers 2 year old Dell laptop recently suffered a hard drive failure. I purchased a replacement hard drive and installed it for him.

    Unfortunately no Windows disc was provided with the laptop. But there is a Windows 7 Home Premium license key printed on the case. I have a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium so I used this disc when reinstalling and it accepted his license key.

    A few days later it started giving an error saying the installation is not genuine. I've contacted both Microsoft and Dell support, each is passing the blame to the other.

    Was wondering does anyone here have suggestions for how to reinstall and activate OEM copies of Windows 7 without purchasing a new license?

    Thanks

    • Answers
  • Knuckle-Dragger

    As you have a DELL OEM Computer adhering to windows hardware certifications (SLIC 2.1 in BIOS), you only need the DELL .XRM-MS certificate and the DELL OEM:SLP key to activate.

    As others have stated, the reason you are not activated is because the fancy hologram non-DELL DVD you used does not have the proper .XRM-MS cert to activate you, even though it is a legit DVD.

    Not sure why COA key did not work or why phone activation people did not help you, but if you track down the cert and OEM:SLP key you can fix yourself with some SLMGR.vbs commands. Find the cert buried in your old HDD's system32 folder or google for it.

    slmgr.vbs -ilc C:\DELL.XRM-MS
slmgr.vbs -ipk XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX

    • Related Question

    Windows 7 Family pack upgrade with Windows XP Home OEM
  • krebstar

    I currently am running Windows 7 RC (Build 7100) 2 and want to make the jump to Windows 7. I was looking at the Windows 7 Home Premium Family pack and from what I understand it is identical to the Windows 7 Home Premium DVD, just with three licenses, correct?

    Anyway, my computer came with Windows XP Home SP2, which I would assume is OEM, I have a Dell OS reinstallation disk, which, as far as I can tell is just the Windows XP CD with a different label, and that it doesn't ask for a CD-key.

    Would I be able to perform a clean install with the Windows 7 Home Premium Family Pack media? Would it simply ask for (and accept) my OEM disk, or would I have to reinstall XP first before I perform the clean install (I read somewhere that the upgrade editions look for previous versions of Windows on your hard drive), or would it view my existing RC2 install as a previous version?

    Is this even possible?

    Thanks


    • Related Answers
  • Steve Rowe

    Windows 7 won't ask for your old media to do a clean install with upgrade media. You need to either install Windows XP and then upgrade (which will force you to choose a clean install) or you need to follow the directions on Paul Thurrott's site on how to clean install using upgrade media.

  • Multiverse IT

    XP asked for the previous version CD (and so did many earlier versions of Windows). But Vista and Windows 7 must have the upgrade started from within a working version of Windows. That should include the RC (there was no RC2) of Windows 7. (Installing from the RC of Win7 should not upgrade - it should do a clean install. In order to do an upgrade, you'd have to hack Windows or the CD (I don't remember - and frankly, I don't recommend it).