Panicing - My Windows 7 isn't genuine

I don't know off the top of my head how many days it will let you boot, but my suggestions would be to BACK UP YOUR DATA ASAP! Dropbox.com will give you 2GB free to get your papers off of it. Then get legal with something like Ubuntu Home Page | Ubuntu. PM Me and I will help you do so as much as possible.

If you've got a flash drive or USB external hard drive, you can use that to back up the data.

As a general note, you *might* want to wait until the official version of Ubuntu 10.04 is released in a couple weeks, or get the Release Candidate which is supposed to come out on the 22nd. I've currently had no luck getting Lucid's betas to finish booting on any of the three computers I've tried them on, but I'm sure this is just my own bad luck and hope that it'll be resolved by the 29th. Otherwise, go with 9.10.

As a general rule of thumb, don't buy software on ebay. I'd even shy away from purchasing DVDs and CDs on there too, unless they're extremely rare. For instance, all those anime DVDs on there with Chinese and English subtitles...most if not all of them are pirated - Hong Kong is like media piracy central. Legit HK releases are the severe minority, Japanese and American discs are almost always region-coded, Japanese discs usually don't have subtitles on them at all, not even Japanese subs, and the American ones don't have such awful translations, nor do they pack 8 episodes or more on a disc (which also makes the video quality look like crap anyway just due to the way the formats the DVD standard uses work).

The reason being, ebay is a known haven for bootleggers, and the site's takedown policies can't totally stop them either. The rarer something is (and by 'rarer' I do also mean 'obscure', stuff most people wouldn't be interested in), the less likely it is to be bootlegged in the sense I'm using it, save for random so-rare-it's-only-available-by-digitized-TV-recordings stuff, in which case I'd rather not get ripped off and just try to find it through Google Video or something (the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special comes to mind here...yes, it is on there). Bootleggers are in it to make money, so they generally go after common stuff but charge less, making their knockoffs more appealing. Doing it to obscure material just isn't as lucrative most times.

Ok, first thing, don't freak out. Nothing will happen to your data. After the 30 days are up, Windows will simply shut down every 2 hours automatically and you will have limited "features". Nothing major. It will be fixed once you enter a new, valid key.

What I would do is contact Microsoft's support line and explain the situation and find out why it's been blocked. Chances are, this guy was banking on selling the same code and while he has 100+ feedback, all those people are now probably getting the same message you are after they gave him the good feedback. They will want as much info on this person as possible as chances are, he's committing fraud if he is indeed selling bogus codes.

You can buy an OEM copy of 7 from NewEgg for $99 for the Home version and $139 for Professional. They are meant for people who build and sell computers, but it's a legit key.

PuppyforChrist said:

I have a feeling that's what this guy was doing, which is giving out bogus IDs. I did fill out an online report about the person and sent it to Microsoft with all of the information, including his account name and transaction ID, I just don't understand why it would work for four months and now it suddenly isn't working anymore. Everything was fine until now.

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More than likely that's just the amount of time it took for the powers that be to notice what was going on and shunt those fake IDs off. The WGA certification that Windows Update requires helps to facilitate this to a degree - it sees whether the installed copy is valid, by checking it against a list of known fakes. It doesn't mean they have a complete list, though, and the four-month delay can be explained by the time it takes to identify and add those particular ones (or one, as the case may be) to the list.

Let's put it this way, I'm a college student with a bank account of not even close to what I would need for even the cheapest, legit version of Windows 7. I can look into versions on NewEgg, but it will be a while until I can afford it.

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In this case it may indeed be of immediate use to switch to Ubuntu, considering it is completely free and therefore you never have to worry about all this licensing stuff. Even if it is only for the remaining time it takes to sort this out. The only hang-up is in particular apps - if you use Microsoft Office, Ubuntu has Open Office. Internet Explorer, Ubuntu has Firefox. If there are special programs required for your classes, you could see if they can run with the help of Wine.

NiobiumTragedy said:

You can buy an OEM copy of 7 from NewEgg for $99 for the Home version and $139 for Professional. They are meant for people who build and sell computers, but it's a legit key.

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Since I'm here, I guess I'll ask: the one thing I'm shaky about concerning OEM licensing is the machine policy. After installing it, is the copy only valid for the machine you installed it to, period? In other words, does it become invalid for any other configuration* afterward, even if you still adhere to the one install at a time obvious restriction? That's the way I understood it, and it does make a limited amount of sense concerning the restore discs one gets with prebuilt systems.

*Of course, I understand this has flexibility; I mean, my license is still valid and I've doubled the RAM, added and replaced optical and hard drives, and added expansion USB and graphics cards. I primarily mean mobo/CPU, or just mobo.

Qyöt27;54532770 said:

Since I'm here, I guess I'll ask: the one thing I'm shaky about concerning OEM licensing is the machine policy. After installing it, is the copy only valid for the machine you installed it to, period? In other words, does it become invalid for any other configuration* afterward, even if you still adhere to the one install at a time obvious restriction? That's the way I understood it, and it does make a limited amount of sense concerning the restore discs one gets with prebuilt systems.

*Of course, I understand this has flexibility; I mean, my license is still valid and I've doubled the RAM, added and replaced optical and hard drives, and added expansion USB and graphics cards. I primarily mean mobo/CPU, or just mobo.

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It works as every other license, it's just meant for people who build and retail computers, which is why the price is so low. It doesn't come in a fancy box, it has an agreement basically saying "this copy is to be used for systems being sold". The only thing it doesn't have is tech support directly through Microsoft. If you need tech support, you have to call the person who built the computer, not MS. Everything else works exactly like a retail version you'd buy for yourself.

I've reinstalled it a couple times on this computer already so it does work for multiple formats, but as with all versions of 7, you can only use the license on one machine at a time, so no installing it on multiple computers.

What I meant there wasn't actually 'multiple computers at a time', it was 'move it from old comp A to new comp B; B is the only one that has it now, but the hardware is different from what was in A'. I mean, it seems like restricting what I just described would be ridiculously hard and draconian, but I'm not willing to think big corporations are somehow *above* that kind of behavior if it were possible for them to actually do so.

From Education Operating System Licensing Q&A
download.microsoft.com/download/4/e/3/4e3eace0-4c6d-4123-9d0c-c80436181742/oslicqa.doc

6. What is the difference between OEM product and Full-Packaged Product (FPP)?

ANSWER. OEM products are intended to be preinstalled on hardware before the end user purchases the product. They are “shrink wrapped” and do not come in a box like the retail products do. Full-Packaged Product (FPP) is boxed with CD(s), manuals, and the EULA and is sold in retail stores in individual boxes. The End User License Agreements (commonly referred to as “EULAs&#8221 for OEM and FPP products are slightly different. One main difference is that an OEM operating system license (such as the license for Windows) cannot be transferred from its original PC to another PC. However, the FPP version of Windows may be transferred to another PC as long as the EULA, manual and media (such as the backup CD) accompany the transfer to the other PC. Also, when a customer purchases an OEM product, the OEM license requires the OEM to provide support for the product.

The Transfer from PC to PC from my understanding is You can't pull it from your HP System & install in on your Home Built system, upgrading the MB is covered though might require a Phone call during activation.

Qyöt27;54538367 said:

What I meant there wasn't actually 'multiple computers at a time', it was 'move it from old comp A to new comp B; B is the only one that has it now, but the hardware is different from what was in A'. I mean, it seems like restricting what I just described would be ridiculously hard and draconian, but I'm not willing to think big corporations are somehow *above* that kind of behavior if it were possible for them to actually do so.

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It shouldn't be a problem to do so. You just need to make sure you format the other computer after you install Windows on the second. I've had to do that a few times myself.

An easier idea though is to take the hard drive from the first computer and make it the master boot hard drive of the new one. That way you keep everything and don't need to change much when you put it in the new machine as 7 will autodetect all the new hardware and find the drivers for you. Then you can use any other hard drives as slaves and use for storage or backup. This is the easier option that I prefer doing when I build a new machine for personal use provided that the hard drive is of sufficient size to make it worth doing. For instance, the drive on this computer right now that has my master boot is 300gb while the others are 500gb, 1tb, and 2tb.

Back up your information on CDs or DVDs. The RWs work well for me. But I also put the info on Read only discs where they can remain uncorrupted. If possible maybe this is a good time to switch to ubuto.

Haven't heard from OP in a while? How did it go?

For all the people suggesting the jump to Ubuntu... I personally don't get it. I use to be very into Linux, but I find it doesn't do what I need it to do. The lack of hardware support is more trouble than it's worth and running a Windows emulator to run Windows programs is well... pointless.

Quite honestly, Windows 7 is the best OS I have used, ever. That includes a long history of Debian, Slack, and many other Linux distributions. But that's just one persons opinion, I guess.