A windows 7 question

Grant

Grant

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One of our security guards was given an HP laptop some years back - and elderly machine now, but pretty good in its day.
Last week the hard drive gave up - he asked if i could help.

So i replaced the hard drive with a freshly formatted drive.
Then installed windows7 (it's original os), using the disk supplied with the machine.

It is throwing up a msg: " This copy of windows is not genuine"

My 1st question is how it is assuming windows is not genuine ?
it has not been connected to internet since the new hard drive was even fitted.

the offending message:
-01-02 at 23.50.03.jpeg

the install disk

2026-01-02 at 23.50.20.jpeg

how does one get around this malarky ?
 
Grant said:
One of our security guards was given an HP laptop some years back - and elderly machine now, but pretty good in its day.
Last week the hard drive gave up - he asked if i could help.

So i replaced the hard drive with a freshly formatted drive.
Then installed windows7 (it's original os), using the disk supplied with the machine.

It is throwing up a msg: " This copy of windows is not genuine"

My 1st question is how it is assuming windows is not genuine ?
it has not been connected to internet since the new hard drive was even fitted.

the offending message:
View attachment 1875135

the install disk

View attachment 1875136

how does one get around this malarky ?
Click to expand...

Yaaar it?
 
some ideas:

1. Pinnacle make their own Proline brand, are you sure the CD is not OEM'd to their hardware? It should be HP branded if it was an HP install/recovery disk.

2. You should be able to just get a copy of Windows 7 somewhere else - i THINK MS might have old images? If not pirate it considering Windows 7 is no longer sold nor supported.

3. Can it not run Windows 10? That would be a better option.

4. Try to continue, then enter the license key shown on the sticker when it has internet access, that might clear the error.
 
Grant said:
One of our security guards was given an HP laptop some years back - and elderly machine now, but pretty good in its day.
Last week the hard drive gave up - he asked if i could help.

So i replaced the hard drive with a freshly formatted drive.
Then installed windows7 (it's original os), using the disk supplied with the machine.

It is throwing up a msg: " This copy of windows is not genuine"

My 1st question is how it is assuming windows is not genuine ?
it has not been connected to internet since the new hard drive was even fitted.

the offending message:
View attachment 1875135

the install disk

View attachment 1875136

how does one get around this malarky ?
Click to expand...
You need to activate still - telephonic usually for the Win7 works to this day
 
you can get legitimate versions of windows 10 for like R99 from forum members OR from places listed on Carbonite OR even have a look at this - i got one from here for my HP microserver since i cannot install Win 11 on that - and i even got Win 11 from them for R99 to install on my 8th gen laptop after installing a new SSD and realizing that i did not want to use the Dell supplied stuff because of the bloatware so i just used the vanilla version of Win 11 pro

https://bountybox.org/collections/all/products/windows-10-pro-retail
 
Grant said:
One of our security guards was given an HP laptop some years back - and elderly machine now, but pretty good in its day.
Last week the hard drive gave up - he asked if i could help.

So i replaced the hard drive with a freshly formatted drive.
Then installed windows7 (it's original os), using the disk supplied with the machine.

It is throwing up a msg: " This copy of windows is not genuine"

My 1st question is how it is assuming windows is not genuine ?
it has not been connected to internet since the new hard drive was even fitted.

the offending message:
View attachment 1875135

the install disk

View attachment 1875136

how does one get around this malarky ?
Click to expand...

Look under the battery for a product key sticker.
 
Grant said:
One of our security guards was given an HP laptop some years back - and elderly machine now, but pretty good in its day.
Last week the hard drive gave up - he asked if i could help.

So i replaced the hard drive with a freshly formatted drive.
Then installed windows7 (it's original os), using the disk supplied with the machine.

It is throwing up a msg: " This copy of windows is not genuine"

My 1st question is how it is assuming windows is not genuine ?
it has not been connected to internet since the new hard drive was even fitted.

the offending message:
View attachment 1875135

the install disk

View attachment 1875136

how does one get around this malarky ?
Click to expand...
They all say that now - all my clients who still use 7 have this issue. Ms did that to force people to upgrade.
 
thanks ppl.
i've been using mac for about 15yrs now - so not that familiar with windows os any longer.
turns out i did install using the wrong (proline) dvd - found the hp disks.

the machine has:
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz
4GB RAM
500GB SATA Hard Drive

which would be the better os for this spec machine: win7, win8, win10 ?
(the guy uses it for basic stuff, browsing, mail & youtube
 
Grant said:
thanks ppl.
i've been using mac for about 15yrs now - so not that familiar with windows os any longer.
turns out i did install using the wrong (proline) dvd - found the hp disks.

the machine has:
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300 2.5GHz
4GB RAM
500GB SATA Hard Drive

which would be the better os for this spec machine: win7, win8, win10 ?
(the guy uses it for basic stuff, browsing, mail & youtube
Click to expand...

It is not going to be a pleasant experience with windows 8 or 10 IMO. Probably better to keep it 7 or try Linux Mint.
 
It's probably ddr3 ram. Does it have a free slot? I may have a few sticks lying around.

May be ddr2 though.
 
Product key should be underneath the machine. Sometimes it’s inside the battery compartment.

Just enter that in the relevant place and the disc shouldn’t matter.
 
Rickster said:
Ubuntu 16.04 should work well.
Click to expand...
i'm not so sure the security guard is ready to move to linux when his windows knowledge is rather limited.

however, of changing operating systems, i'm of the mind to give him one of my old macbook pro's.
its also a pensioner - but a quick & very reliable one.
it has an i7, 2.77ghz processor
16gb ram
two 1tb ssd drives (dvd drive was removed and additional hd installed in its place).
i'll give it to him later to "test drive" over the w/end (some ppl just dont like changing from one os to another)

in the interim i'll install win10 on his machine - i have quite a few ram chips laying about, will see what max the hp machine can use
 
problem solved
he is moving to mac, taking my old machine

somehow while erasing a rewritable dvd, windows lost the dvd drive - fark me . . .


my god, i remember one of my reasons to move all those years back - frustration !
download this driver, download that driver, upgrade ram - re-activate windows, update after update after update - endless
 
The install disk has a deferent OA2 signature file which doesn't match the OA2 SLIC in the firmware (Pinnacle vs HP). I'm sure a bit of search engine fu can tell you how to replace the file and activate. Look the at the ACPI tables and check if there is a MSDM table populated with a key (OEMs sold a lot of Win8/10 machines with downgrade rights or Win7 preinstalled but licensed for the newer OS).

Back in the day, from what I remember, the Dell signatures were the first to leak for Win7 (I think a month after official launch), but the collection of signatures quickly grew (plug a USB into the retail demo machines, run a script, grab certain files and OEM key via script).

OA1 and OA2 where relatively easy to activate/pirate, hence Win8+ moved to OA3 where every OEM gave every machine's firmware a unique signature in a new firmware table (MSDM; essentially the actual unique 5x5 product key) and insisted that every machine activates online by the end user (OA1 and 2 were factory pre-activated).

Kind of you to give them a Mac. The old machine may be a winner with one of the popular Linux distros (perhaps XFCE/LXDE).
 
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