HP Elitebook 8770w Win 7 Prompting for License Activation

I have a pre-installed Win 7 Pro system on a new (few months old) 8770w. Something caused the SPP to reject the license and is now warning that Win 7 is not genuine. This has been discussed before in other parts of this forum, but I’m seeing something quite different that’s confusing.

This system contains images for both Win 7 and Win 8, but only one at a time (no dual boot, just the choice of what’s installed and licensed). This machine has no COA sticker, the original packaging had nothing to indicate this was anything other than a retail machine with a preinstalled OS, the OS is tatoo’ed and the key is in BIOS. I retrieved the BIOS and Windows keys. But Win 7 won’t accept either one. The BIOS key is rejected as “incorrect,” and the Windows key results in an Activating Windows dialog box with an error 0xC004F074.

I know what that error is, and product key is the KMS public key, but this is supposed to be a retail machine with a Win 8 downgrade option (which I naturally see as an upgrade). But I digress. Shouldn’t the activation channel be something other than KMS, or am I missing something?

 

The bios key is for windows 8 (8.1) so it works only if you install 8 or 10. Windows 7 uses key that's embedded in installation media instead.

Is it few months new to you, or new from sealed box? I think a retail box should include OS discs for 7 and 8 both. That was standard practice in 2012 when that computer was new.

Whoever did the downgrade from preinstalled 8 to 7 did not use original discs and installed a wrong OS version on top of that. KMS activation gets old every few months and they need to reconnect with company's KMS server every now and then to maintain activated status. Proper OEM installation shows as a Retail channel if I remember correctly.

So... where did the Windows 7 installation come from? Is that some company's old computer and they uses KMS licenses? Because the other obvious choise is a pirated windows copy (and a badly done at that, amateurs...) in which case I would nuke the hdd from orbit and install everything from scratch with a clean image. You never know what might creep in with those shady installs.

Either you need original install discs from HP or a generic ISO image from here and HP OEM key and certificate from "somewhere else".

 

You should have a recovery partition that you can access from the BIOS to restore your PC to factory default. If you don't then someone did some mucking around on the HD and blew it away before you got it. ( PC stopped shipping with installation media a long time ago. However, Recovery disk were made available - pre-installed option ) .

This link may help with Recovery instructions : http://h20566.www2.hp.com/hpsc/doc/...257511&docLocale=en_US&docId=emr_na-c03489643

Now unfortunately you are outside of the window to get MS Free upgrade to Windows 10.

I would recommend just biting the bullet and purchasing Windows 10 ( retail ) and save yourself some heartache and pain.

Now if you you have a copy of Windows 7 and a product key, you can load it and be up in no time but I think the cost of Windows 10 Pro is well worth it.

Now if you have 8770w I would recommend that you make sure that all of your memory slots are populated ( 4x ) 8G is fine but if you have 2 x 4G att 2 more and take it to 16. The machine can take a max of 32 G

Eunix