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#11
May I ask where and how you obtained a Pre-Activated Windows installation? Some Googling seems to indicate it may be a Builders License. I am not totally certain. Can you help with some details?
One pic that would be helpful is a WINVER. Just open a command prompt, and type WINVER, enter. Please post the entire image as seen. Example of mine (I personalized mine a bit).
Last edited by f14tomcat; 18 Feb 2019 at 08:23.
"Pre-activated" is the term used to describe an illegal activation scheme with a local KMS server embedded in the Windows installation.
@jk22, this is what you need to do. Let the Microsoft Media Creation Tool create a genuine USB flash drive for you. Don't worry about Home or Pro, it will contain a whole bunch of different versions. Boot the computer from the flash drive. Select the custom install option. Delete the existing Windows 10 installation. Note if your user data files are on C: drive, this is going to erase them. Also delete all the system and recovery partitions associated with the current Windows installation. Then highlight the resulting unallocated space to install to and click next to let Windows set everything up.
Don't worry about activation or which edition is getting installed. After you connect to the internet you will find that you have a true, genuine, legally activated installation of Windows 10 Pro.
You won't need a product key.
@jk22
You have genuine Win 8 Pro licence that can be upgraded to Win 10 Pro for free (AFAIK it's still working)
You also have this key installed: W269N-WFGWX-YVC9B-4J6C9-T83GX = Win 10 RTM Professional Volume:GVLK = KMS activation (if not part of a corporate LAN = illegit)
So ... get rid of the exploit (search for all instances of KMS on C:\ drive and registry and delete them) or better still clean install Win 10 Pro and it will activate with the OEM key once internet connection is in place.
Remember: always use genuine MS downloads ... irrespective of the illegitimacy there may be malicious intent should you not ...
I would wipe the drive / erase everything. Who knows what other nasties were bundled with your "pre-activated" install.
Download some safe install media via the Media Creation tool. Do a custom install and delete all the partitions. Then just install into the unallocated space. Windows will create the partitions it needs all on its own.
If you are prompted for a key try entering the Windows 8 Pro key. If won't accept it just click the I don't have one option, and select 10 Pro from the list.
Then try entering the 8 Pro key again in the activation window in settings.