How to reuse a windows 7 professional oem license?

[Lyzone]

Hi. I'm attempting to fix a personal laptop, and I've deactivated (and taken a photo of) the key. It's an OEM key, *****-OEM-*******-*****. I typed "slmgr -upk" into cmd to remove the key, and now I don't know what to enter into the Microsoft website. The website says I need a valid key when I enter it. Does anyone have a solution? (At the moment, it's a personal laptop. Before this, it was a work laptop. If I can't get it to work, that's fine, but it'd be nice.) Thanks.

 

[therealduckofdeath]

An OEM license is a lower priced variant tied to a specific computer. They can't be reused or moved. It's also stored in the laptops BIOS/firmware, so if you install the OEM Windows type meant for the laptop it should activate automatically. Check with the manufacturer's support if they can help you get hold of a "recovery image".

 

[USAFRet]

Hi. I'm attempting to fix a personal laptop, and I've deactivated (and taken a photo of) the key. It's an OEM key, *****-OEM-*******-*****. I typed "slmgr -upk" into cmd to remove the key, and now I don't know what to enter into the Microsoft website. The website says I need a valid key when I enter it. Does anyone have a solution? (At the moment, it's a personal laptop. Before this, it was a work laptop. If I can't get it to work, that's fine, but it'd be nice.) Thanks.

*****-OEM-*******-***** is not the license key. That is the Product ID.
Like "Ford Mustang" is the 'Product ID', and 123ABC is what is on the license plate.

The license key is xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx
5 groups of 5 characters.

The actual license key you're looking for should be printed on the laptop case somewhere, possibly under the battery.
Or, if the original OS is still running, you may be able to discover it with Belarc Advisor.

However, since you "deactivated" it, the OS may not know about its license anymore.

And really, that commandline deactivation doesn't do much except tell this specific hardware it has no license anymore. It does not phone home and tell the activation servers anything.

 

[Lyzone]

Thanks guys, haven't done this type of thing in a while. I didn't know that I couldn't reuse it, or that it would automatically reapply itself, but I still have the problem. If I factory reset it, will the os (Win 7 Prof) still be there, or do I have to reinstall it on a flash drive? I'm asking this because on my desktop, I had to deactivate my product key and put it back after resetting. I might be getting 2 things confused here. I'm looking to remove all data from the computer except for the OS.

 

[therealduckofdeath]

Windows 7 doesn't really have the cloud backupped keys as Windows 10 and it also lacks a built-in factory reset feature. If you're still running on the factory installed file system you should have their factory reset feature, which would fix it all for you (at the cost of reinstalling all the manufacturer bloat and trail-ware... )
An OEM windows install just checks if the BIOS has the OEM key built-in, if it does it activates, if not the install stops/fails.

 

[USAFRet]

Thanks guys, haven't done this type of thing in a while. I didn't know that I couldn't reuse it, or that it would automatically reapply itself, but I still have the problem. If I factory reset it, will the os (Win 7 Prof) still be there, or do I have to reinstall it on a flash drive? I'm asking this because on my desktop, I had to deactivate my product key and put it back after resetting. I might be getting 2 things confused here. I'm looking to remove all data from the computer except for the OS.

If that factory reset partition still exists, invoking that will bring it back to exactly how it was on day 1 when you opened the box.