Windows requires activation watermark

I had the above pop up on my screen yesterday, which I thought was strange as it was activated a long time ago.
This is a Asus aspire laptop, originally Windows 7, but upgraded under the MS Windows 10 offer, and I have a digital
activation registered with MS.
I ran malwarebytes to confirm it wasn't something malicious.
Today (God bless MS) I was "upgraded" with KB4565489 and KB 4497165, so I have the latest version, but still unregistered.

However, although MS won't let me register the Key for this version, and maintains it's "unregistered", the activation page shows the last set of my activation key 8HVX7.

No activation watermark is shown on screen, and so far no ill effects of running unregistered, but what of the future. Anyone shed some light on this scenario?? TIA, of course. (Windows 10 18363.959)

Open a command prompt with admin privileges and run:

slmgr /ato

What result do you get?

Looks like the seller gave you a leaked product key. (like XP with "FCKGW")

Pawncob said:

This is a Asus aspire laptop, originally Windows 7, but upgraded under the MS Windows 10 offer, and I have a digital activation registered with MS....

I think you mean an Acer Aspire, not Asus....

The free upgrade to Windows 10 should have registered a Digital Licence for W10 on the Microsoft activation servers and linked to the hardware ID of the PC. Activation can be lost with a significant hardware change such as the motherboard, but the HDD plays no part in the hardware ID. With a Digital Licence you can clean install the same edition of W10 (Home or Pro) and skip entering a key when asked. It should activate automatically from the Digital Licence as soon as it can contact the activation servers.

....the activation page shows the last set of my activation key 8HVX7.

That key is the generic key for Windows 10 Home and is typically the installed key found after upgrading from W7 Home/Premium to W10. A generic key will not activate Windows, it requires there to be a digital licence for this PC on the activation servers.

@Superfly is an expert on activation and may be able to help sort this out.

Does the computer still have a readable Windows 7 COA sticker with a product key printed on it? If yes, you can try changing the product key to the one printed on that label.

I downloaded the ISO from MS, so it's legit and the W7 key was used to activate it, so I have a digital key registered.
I still have a W7 key (and W10) but the activation page won't let me enter it, so I'm stuck.
It's been OK for a couple of years since I installed W10, so what's changed?

Try:

sfc /scannow and dism /online /cleanup-image:

Code:

C:\Windows\system32>sfc /scannow

Beginning system scan.  This process will take some time.

Beginning verification phase of system scan.
Verification 100% complete.

Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations.

C:\Windows\system32>Dism /online /cleanup-image /scanhealth

Deployment Image Servicing and Management tool
Version: 10.0.17763.1282

Image Version: 10.0.17763.1339

[==========================100.0%==========================] No component store corruption detected.
The operation completed successfully.

If you have no issues with the OS, you can try:

Code:

slmgr /upk
slmgr /ipk <product key>  (use your Windows 7 product key)
slmgr /ato

If that doesn't work, you can go back to the Windows 10 Home generic product key:

Code:

slmgr /upk
slmgr /ipk YTMG3-N6DKC-DKB77-7M9GH-8HVX7
slmgr /ato

Finally, look at activation troubleshooting here:
Activation troubleshooting

There is also Microsoft's activation troubleshooter:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/...troubleshooter

sfc failed at 42% and dism returned error 87.
Can't get sfc to write a log file though.

Pawncob said:

sfc failed at 42% and dism returned error 87.
Can't get sfc to write a log file though.

There's your problem. Corrupt Windows install with a possible hard drive failure.