New
#1
Cannot activate genuine copy after clean install
A friend of mine, who is a computer illiterate older lady, asked me to fix her laptop that her son gave her. It was a disaster. I decided that instead of trying to clean the OS, I would upgrade it from Windows 7 (genuine) to Windows 10. The upgrade icon on the taskbar was present so I clicked on that to start the download. It spent days stuck on "starting download". Since that wasn't working, I looked up a tutorial on a Microsoft support page by a "Community Moderator". He laid out a step-by-step manual method that including using the Media Creation Tool and USB option. I did that. Now I can't get the copy to activate. The label underneath the laptop, where I'm assuming the Windows 7 key would be, is rubbed off. Every page that came up on my search talks about downgrading to 7. It was a clean install so I can't do that. I also tried activation over the phone.
Nowhere in the tutorial did it mention that you have to upgrade first then do the clean install. I can't downgrade to 7 and can't activate 10.
Can somebody please help out with this?