0

How do I change the product key for a MSDN based Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit PC?

I am aware that if I had a retail version, then the process would be simple, namely

Control Panel | System | Windows activation | change product key

The problem is that my Windows 7 box does not have the Windows activation section in the system applet.

I saw this page referenced in one way or the other, but I do not have that key, nor is my Windows 7 box Windows XP. I also looked at this question, but that just said the obvious, through the system control panel applet.

After the last upgrade (December 9, 2015), I see a nice message in the lower right corner that my copy is not genuine. That does not bother me, but at one point, when I tried to upgrade to Windows 10, I got the update rejected, because my key is not valid. As I understand things, the key is fine, just I have a development version, not a retail version.

I obtained a new key and would like to enter it, but I could not find a way. How do I change the product key?

Community
  • 1
Sarah Weinberger
  • 759

1 Answers1

0

@magicandre1981 had the right idea, just did not post all the steps. Additionally, there were a few interesting things.

Before continuing, here are some additional resources that I found/used: Manually Activating Windows and License Manager Script.

The folder, C:\Windows\System32, did NOT contain the slmgr.vbs script. I had to do a directory search and found two of them. I had to use this one.

C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-security-spp-tools_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_456f9c422073f3b7\slmgr.vbs

The other one did not work for whatever reason. I copied this version to the "C:\Windows\System32" folder.

One cannot simply enter slmgr.vbs -ipk KEY onto an admin command prompt. You have to use either Power Shell or, as I wound up doing, open an admin command prompt, and type in:

cscript "C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-security-spp-tools_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_none_456f9c422073f3b7\slmgr.vbs" -ipk KEY

where KEY is the new product key.

Here are the steps at the end of everything.

  1. cscript "C:\Windows\System32\slmgr.vbs" -ipk
  2. cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -ato
  3. cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs -dlv

The -ato activates the license. The -dlv option displays the status.

After I did all three steps above, I no longer saw the not a genuine nag message in the lower right corner of my Windows desktop, however I still did not have a real genuine copy of Windows. Microsoft's verification tools would not validate Windows or find the license manager script, even though it was there.

The problem was that MSDN is not a real Windows 7 installation. A few things got changed. I did have a license thanks to slmgr.vbs -ipk and -ato, which allowed me to install Windows 10.

The solution was that I upgraded to Windows 10, which was what I honestly wanted to do anyways. A note, even though Microsoft stated during the update process that it got the latest updates, I did not wind up with Windows 10 version 1511, even after subsequent updates. I will have to either wait 30 days or simply go to

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

I had to do that on a different PC.

The update to Windows 10 went well and I now see that I have a genuine copy of Windows and the control panel system applet shows the activation windows nicely.

Sarah Weinberger
  • 759