I loaded a windows system image onto my computer that I built a couple years ago, and everything worked fine until about a week ago. A watermark appeared out of nowhere that says "Activate Windows." Like I said, I've been using my computer for about two years and have never had this problem before. My old computer also never had this. I found some solution videos on the internet, but none of them worked. I'm on windows 10 Pro.
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I loaded a windows system image onto my computer that I built a couple years ago, and everything worked fine until about a week ago. A watermark appeared out of nowhere that says "Activate Windows."
Your Windows 10 installation appears not to be activated. In order to activate Windows 10 by phone do the following:
Press the Win+R keys to open Run, type SLUI 4, and click/tap on OK.
Select your country or region, and click/tap on Next.
Call the provided "Microsoft activation phone number" for a Microsoft Product Activation Center. It would be best to call the toll free number.
The automated phone system will ask you to enter your 63 digit installation ID (IID), and click/tap on Enter confirmation ID after successfully doing so.
Enter the confirmation ID number given by the automated phone system, and click/tap on Activate Windows when finished.
If Windows was successfully activated with your product key, then click/tap on Close.
If activation failed, then stay on the line and wait to be transferred to an activation operator (human) that may be able to help.
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The reason you are having this issue is you are using an image from a different computer. Even if the previous computer was activated, Windows recognizes the new machine as not being tied to the license. You will need to activate Windows in the process described in Ramhounds answer.
Keltari
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