If I buy a OEM key from a store, can I go to the enter product key section of the settings and use that key? I think I heard somewhere that OEM keys can only be used when you're installing windows, not on an already installed windows.
View 1 RepliesYesterday my boot drive failed with activated Windows 10. I bought the computer from a friend with no windows packaging or product key. I have since ordered a 850 evo to replace it but how will I activate Windows with no product key?Will I have to buy a new copy of Windows or will Microsoft give me a new product key?
View 1 RepliesWhen upgrading to Windows 10, I clicked to download the 64-bit version however when I finished installing it was a 32-bit version.
View 2 RepliesI was installing a new printer on a Windows 10 home computer today in an office. The other PC's I upgraded to Win 10 from 7, no problems. This PC is a relatively new one that came with 10 pre-installed when they purchased it. When installing the new printer a couple of the pc's (including this one), had a duplicate entry (I am thinking they must have tried to install it themselves at some point and failed, though they hadn't told me that).
On the other PC I was able to go into 'print management' and remove the duplicate entry, then reinstall and everything is fine. On the "new" PC however, 'printmanagement.msc' is completely missing. I tried bringing it up with the searchbar first, it didn't find it. So I went via the admin panel and there was no shortcut. Launching from cmd line did nothing. On the other computer I was able to find 'printmanagement.msc' in the system32 folder, but on this computer it is not present in that folder at all.
I did some searching on MS and Google, and only found instructions for installing the snap-in via Windows Server 2003/2008. How I can (re)install this component on that PC using Windows 10 Home? It seems odd to me that would be missing in the first place. Perhaps this is an easy answer and my GoogleFu is weak on this occasion, but I couldn't find any references to not having printmanager present on a native Windows 10 install. I didn't turn up any kind of download for it on the Microsoft site, but as I said, perhaps I'm just "missing" it.
I just realized I should have tried an sfc /scannow, but didn't think of that until I was writing this.
I want to download an ISO for my friends computer. But all he is eligible for is Windows 10 home edition. Will the ISO that I download on my Windows 10 Pro work for his?
View 2 RepliesI did an Upgrade from W7 Pro 64 bit to Windows 10 and it worked fine but the three printers attached to the computer no longer work. The print Spooler is stopped and all efforts to restart it fail with Error 0x80070057 "Incorrect parameter".
View 7 RepliesLogitech webcam 250.
Video works fine in both directions.
Incoming audio works fine but people on the other end can't hear me.
Went to Logitech website to update drivers and drivers are current.
Device Manager says device working properly.
In the past i have had to reinstall windows 8 multiple times because of stuff. but sense you had to have windows 8.1 pro activated to get windows 10 pro and keep its activation. what happens if i have to reinstall windows 10... how will i get a activation key without paying for it, or will i have to buy a activation key?
View 1 RepliesI had no problem with Windows 7, but now with Win 10 Pro 64bit, when I click on SLEEP it works, UNTIL I switch off the screen or switch off my wifi mouse, then the system gets activated again.
I think I've managed to do it by lining up the pointer with my mouse, switching off the mouse, then the screen and pressing enter - the keyboard light goes out, so I guess it has worked. But who wants to do that every time - even then it usually fails.
I've upgraded my Windows 8.1 Pro (activated with DreamSpark key) to the Windows 10 Build 10162 and then to the latest Build 10240. Now, I want to do PC reset. To complete that, I'll need a installation media, so I've already downloaded ESD of Build 10240 and converted to ISO.
Will my PC stay activated after the reset? Will my PC stay activated when I upgrade to RTM and do clean install via ISO when it's available?
SO I upgraded to win 10, then wiped and did a clean install of win 10 again.. verifying that it was activated. a couple days later my motherboard took a dive, so I ordered a new one with a new CPU. Now windows is no longer activated... will MS allow me to activate it again or do I need to buy in now?
View 1 RepliesSo I have my new system up and running beautifully, and finally I am able to install my favorite game (Sims 2 Ultimate Collection) And I go to play the game, and BAM I get an error message saying security module cannot be activated. I looked farther into this and it turns out michrosoft doesn't support games with SecuROM in win 10. So what the hell. Am I just simply not going to be able to play this game at all? Which really sucks because this is the only system I have and the only way I would ever be able to play it. Is there ANY work around??? Youtube has people playing sims 2 on windows 10, but they give no explanation.
View 1 RepliesI was activated before the th2 update. Even after I installed it. Today, I just did a reboot, and I login and now it says I'm no longer activated?It gives me a big error in red saying "Windows can't activate right now. Try activating later. If that doesn't work contact support. Error 0xC004F012".
View 2 Repliesi just upgraded my original Windows 8.1 to Windows 10, and when i try to activate it, Windows gives me an error
"Windows cannot be activated, please try again later"
How can i solve this?
Before windows 10 was out, I was dual booting my system and I had windows 8.1 and windows 10 insider preview on it. So after windows 10 was out, I deleted the windows 10 insider preview partition and did a dirty install over the windows 8.1 (not an upgrade). Skipped product key entry on install and logged in with my Microsoft account (which is also my insider account).
The thing is now, my window 10 shows it's activated but I am not in the insider program ( I have checked in the settings app and I am not in the program). So did Microsoft give it to me for free? because I thought the prerequisite for having a genuine windows 10 is either buying it or being in the windows insider program.
I had windows 10 activated on my mac (via bootcamp), then I completely deleted the bootcamp partition (to expand it) and reinstalled win 10. Once installed, Windows automatically activated citing "digital entitlement".
View 2 RepliesI upgraded my Windows 7 to Windows 10 using the windows updater. After windows 10 was installed, I decided to download this Windows 10 and chose the USB option. I booted into my USB and when selecting the partition, I deleted every partition that was there (even the system). Now I am on windows 10 with no activation. I have the Windows 7 product key but it does not work.
P.S its not pirated Windows 7. I got it from Dream spark (on the hub) students saving.
I restored my system back a few days because my OS just started falling to pieces with errors. That issue is fixed, but now my windows isn't activated anymore. I have had no hardware changes, since i upgrades from windows 7 except changing the driver for my Ethernet adapter. My error reads Error code: 0xC004C003
View 9 Replieswhen fast start up is activated, I cannot enter the BIOS by tapping a designated key .
If windows can be loaded, I may disable the fast start up, or simple click the Restart, then tap the designated key during next start up.
How do I enter the BIOS, when Windows cannot be loaded?
Upgraded grand-daughter's pc from 7 to 10. Seemed a bit sluggish running from a spinning HDD so I decided to do a clean install to a SSD using the same USB I had made to upgrade with. Installed just fine but now says the keys don't match and I have to buy a key? Thought the upgrade was tied to your hardware (motherboard/CPU) and a clean install after would be activated?
View 4 RepliesSo a few months back I upgraded for free from win7 to win10 Pro. Today I got a new CPU, RAM, MBO (also currently using the new MBO onboard GPU, waiting for my new one) and did a clean install of Win10 (from USB created with MediaCreationToolkit). Now I remember reading somewhere about steps to activate Windows 10 after hardware change, but can't seem to find it anywhere, so thought I'd ask here.The error I'm getting: 0x004C003 The activation server determined the specified product key is blocked.The thing is I need to get this PC up to my needs fast, and this doesn't cope well with that..
View 3 RepliesIt all started out with problems with activation and windows update, so whatever .
A couple of days ago, I suddenly had a watermark in the bottom right corner of my screen saying that I should activate windows. I have a legit copy of windows and had it registered before when I installed it (about 5 months ago) and had no problems until now. When I go to the activation window and attempt to re-register, I get this message: "Windows can't activate right now. Try activating again later. If that doesn't work, contact support. Error code: 0xC004F012"
After trying this during different times of the day for about a week, I started checking other stuff and found another quite big problem: I can't start Windows Update.
The service is set to "disabled" and when I change it to anything but this, it automatically changes back after around 30 seconds. Up until now, Windows Update never had any problems and ran regularily. So then I started googling this problem and found some solutions, all of which do not work:
I tried resetting the Windows Update ([URL]), but that didn't work either, since it coulnd't complete every step. It failed when running "sfc /scannow" at around 15%.
So I searched for solutions to that problem and found this: [URL]....
Checkdisk worked fine, but then I noticed another problem, I can't even run DISM to fix stuff. Attempting to run "Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth" returned an error, saying that the remote procedure call failed...
Here is my sfc log: [URL]....
and here my dism log: [URL]....
Short version: suddenly windows is no longer activated, windows update can't be started, sfc and dism fail... I would love a solution that does not require me to completely reinstall windows!
Here are my specs:
I have a Lenovo G700 ([URL]) with an i5-3230M @2.60GHz and a Geforce GT 720M (the rest wasn't configurable). My OS is Windows 10 Pro N x64, version 1511, build 10586.11.
I'm having issues with deploying out-of the box windows 10 on a Lenovo B50-80EW preinstalled win 7 pro and upgradable to win 8.1 Pro however since the new windows 10 update build 1511 ISO I download I thought it would go through OK . without have to do first upgrade install to windows 10
Secure BOOT on UEFI ON
From putting the windows 10 ISO in drive it doesn't prompt for activation key. As soon as network settings prompts I press shift/ Contro / F3
Now in administrator Mode I check windows is activated however I have the same model of laptop and I want to mass deploy an image but want to use the OEM key embedded in BIOS to each laptop of this model is this possible to be done as I deployed on another machine and got message saying this key is already in use is there an issue with the new ISO available from Microsoft .
I also tried fresh install with out no ethernet or wireless connected and still get on same machine windows is activated in audit mode on fresh setup.
I had windows 8.1 and already upgraded for free to windows 10 home. Now I want to do a clean install of windows 10 with a usb drive and their create media installer program. What I want to know is if I can possibly use the windows 10 home N version? I like the idea of not having the stuff I may not use if I go for 3rd party software for videos and the like. Will it work or will it not let me since I didn't have an "N" version of my windows 8.1?
View 1 RepliesI recently used a Windows 10 ISO image tool to store Windows 10 on a USB for later use. Then I found out that I had to buy a Windows 10 license for it to work and I bought one... an OEM version. This isn't a huge issue as I can buy an optical drive for 20 bucks and put it inside of the PC that I will work on but then if the OEM product key will work with the Windows that I have stored on the flash drive that would be great as I don't have to spend 20 dollars on an optical drive that I will never use since I download most (if not all) of my media online. Long story short I would like to use an OEM product key on a flash drive that has Windows 10 on it.
ISO image tool that I used: [URL]
Just upgraded to Windows 10, and it only took 10 min! After looking at the features I saw cortana was disabled due to policy, but fixed that with language changes. After that I expected it to work, but no. It says "Cortana is not available for this version of Windows", yet my control panel says I have a 64bit Windows 10 Pro Operating system.
View 1 Replies