"Activate Windows" error 0x8007007B

Hi all. I got a free upgrade to Windows 10 when it was launched. It's been working as it should, but for the last couple months or so now I've had "Active Windows" on the lower right-hand side of my screen. When I open the activation page, this is what I see.



I don't have an activation key, and I don't have access any longer to the email that I was using when I upgraded. I don't even remember having a key in the first place, since it was the free upgrade.

Can anyone tell me what to do to make this go away?

Thank you!

adripendleton said:

Hi all. I got a free upgrade to Windows 10 when it was launched. It's been working as it should, but for the last couple months or so now I've had "Active Windows" on the lower right-hand side of my screen. When I open the activation page, this is what I see....

Your screenshot clearly states that you are running Windows 10 Enterprise. There is no way you could have got that by the free upgrade to Windows 10. Only Home or Pro was offered free, which you got depended on which version of 7 or 8 you upgraded from. 7/8 Pro and above got 10 Pro, the rest got 10 Home. No one who got the legitimate upgrade to 10 got a key, they all got a generic key.

Your key is shown as ending in 2YT43. This is the generic KMS activation key for Enterprise. A KMS activated machine requires regular contact with a corporate Key Management Server in order to stay activated. There is no possible way this could have been a 'free upgrade' as you claim.

Bree said:

Your screenshot clearly states that you are running Windows 10 Enterprise. There is no way you could have got that by the free upgrade to Windows 10. Only Home or Pro was offered free, which you got depended on which version of 7 or 8 you upgraded from. 7/8 Pro and above got 10 Pro, the rest got 10 Home. No one who got the legitimate upgrade to 10 got a key, they all got a generic key.

Your key is shown as ending in 2YT43. This is the generic KMS activation key for Enterprise. A KMS activated machine requires regular contact with a corporate Key Management Server in order to stay activated. There is no possible way this could have been a 'free upgrade' as you claim.

Well I have no idea why it's the Enterprise version, because I honestly did get the free upgrade from Microsoft when it came out. It would be really stupid and counter-productive for me to lie about that. I've been using Windows 10 on this computer since the option of the free upgrade with the release of Windows 10, and have only started having this problem in the last couple months. I obtained this legitimately, so clearly this is some kind of bug or glitch or some other problem. I don't know.

I did a complete wipe/reset of the computer recently, as it is old and was running a bit slowly, and I don't remember this problem starting until after that.

And that would also explain why I don't remember ever receiving a key. I just remembered that when it came out, I installed the upgrade with no key required.

adripendleton said:

Well I have no idea why it's the Enterprise version, because I honestly did get the free upgrade from Microsoft when it came out...
...I did a complete wipe/reset of the computer recently, as it is old and was running a bit slowly, and I don't remember this problem starting until after that.

Well, it looks like you somehow put Enterprise on the machine. Perhaps you took an image of another working machine and put that on?

What edition of Windows 10 did you get in the free upgrade, Home or Pro? An upgrade of a machine running a licensed copy of 7 or 8 would get a digital license stored on Microsoft's activation servers and linked to the hardware ID of the machine. This licence will activate a clean install of Windows 10, but only if you install the edition that you have a license for, Home or Pro.

My advice would be to back up any user files, then do a clean install using install media downloaded from Microsoft. Providing you install the same edition it will activate automatically from your license.

Clean Install Windows 10 | Tutorials

Superfly said:

It may be the reset was from an Enterprise recovery image and installed that together with the default key for that edition...

Yes, that's a more likely explanation than mine.

Caledon Ken said:

When you say you did a complete wipe where did you get your boot (install) media from?

Do you have a COA (Microsoft product sticker) on your device that would tell you what edition you are supposed to be using?

Superfly said:

It may be the reset was from an Enterprise recovery image and installed that together with the default key for that edition.

You do not have image backup's of before the "wipe/reset" I suppose?

From what edition did you do the free upgrade (Win7/8? Home/Pro?)

Unfortunately no, I didn't think to save anything except my photos/videos and a list of the programs I wanted to reinstall.

The sticker on my laptop says Windows 8 Pro.

I'm a bit confused about what "recovery images" are, and how I could have possibly gotten the Enterprise version from a reinstall of Windows. My knowledge in this area is quite limited, so I feel a bit lost!

When I did the hard reset of my computer, all I did was move my personal files from the internal HD onto my external HD, write down the applications I wanted to reinstall, then go into Windows and choose "Reset this PC" to wipe everything clean. At some point after that, Windows started telling me it needs to be activated.

Caledon Ken said:

Do you have a COA (Microsoft product sticker) on your device that would tell you what edition you are supposed to be using?

You would only have had a CoA if the machine was supplied by the manufacturer with Windows 7. If the machine came originally with Windows 8 or 8.1 then a key is embedded in the bios firmware. Actually, that makes life easy. In a clean install Setup will read this key from the firmware and use it to determine which edition to install and to activate it.