Reinstalling Windows 10 - how bad are my issues?

Hi,

I just bought a secondhand/refurbished laptop with Windows 10 installed, and wanted to do a clean reinstall of the Operating system. When reading over instructions including this thread, I noticed my screens are somewhat different from his, particularly in that it says "Windows is activated using your organization's activation service"..

WINVER:


Activation:


Digging further, from what I understand it looks like my system is volume licensed and will expire(?)

Running slmgr.vbs /dli


So I'm left wondering how much of a concern this is. Mainly I'm wondering 1) does this mean the system is cracked/pirated, and is likely to have bad security/malware, and 2) If I try to do a clean reinstall, will this version still be able to reactivate on it's own, even though (I assume) later it will still expire? Thanks.

eli4262 said:

... I'm wondering 1) does this mean the system is cracked/pirated, and is likely to have bad security/malware, and 2) If I try to do a clean reinstall, will this version still be able to reactivate on it's own, even though (I assume) later it will still expire?

Welcome to Ten Forums eli4262

I'm sorry to tell you that the seller has taken you for a ride

At best you have bought an ex-company machine that was originally activated by the company's own KMS server. Volume activation needs to contact the KMS server regularly to keep its activation.

At worst (and more likely) this is a illegal install that has a KMS crack to simulate the KMS server to keep it activated.

Either way, the seller was scamming you. KMS activation will expire if this was an ex-company machine, and if it was a cracked install then (unless Defender has been hacked too) sooner or later the KMS crack will be detected and removed by Defender, after which activation will expire.


A clean install of Pro will not activate either, I'm afraid, not unless this machine already has a digital license of its own.

The only chance that you could do a clean install and it will activate is if the machine was originally supplied by the OEM with Windows 8 or 10 pre-installed. If so there will be a key for W8/10 embedded in the bios. You can check for that with ShowKeyPlus

Iif there is a key, it may not be for Pro though, it's more likely to be for Home (else the seller wouldn't have needed to install a cracked version of Pro).

Bree said:

Welcome to Ten Forums eli4262
I'm sorry to tell you that the seller has taken you for a ride

I agree.

Does the laptop has a Win 7 or 8.x COA sticker? Look under and on the battery compartment.

The seller increased their profit illegally (the cost of a Windows retail license).

It is cracked software.

You could try changing the Windows 10 KMS product key to the generic product key and see what happens:
VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T