Windows licencing woes

[RizzoTheRat]

My PC used to be on Windows 7, when I upgraded to 10 I did the upgrade, got the licence key, downloaded a Win10 Home install from Microsoft, then wiped the system and installed a fresh version of 10 using the licence key.

Managed to break something recently and after system restore failed to run I did the full recovery which supposedly leaves you with a vanilla windows install.

However it now won't activate. Settings-Activation says "We can't activate Windows on this device because you don't have a valid digital licence or product key"

Running the troubleshooter says "We found a Windows 10 Home Digital licence for this device running Windows 10 Home, to activate the digital licence you need to install Windows 10 Home."

System Info says I'm running Windows 10 Home and downloaded a tool to extract my licence key and it does have the correct key installed.

Any ideas?

[Buffalo]

I didn't something similar when reinstalling my MBP boot camp partition. I ended up calling th windows help line - the genuine one, not the Indian fellas - and could prove I had original win 7 key, from before the win 10 upgrade. They took control of the computer a while and scooted about trying a couple of things. In the end they gave me a new licence key. Could be worth a shot?

[speedyman]

After it all gets sorted download and run Belarc Adviser, this will capture the config and all licenses should you ever need it again. Saves a lot of mucking about later.

[130R]

Have you installed all the windows updates? I think I needed the anniversary update installed first when I recently did a completely fresh install and needed to activate with a win 7 key.

[RizzoTheRat]

Will it download all the updates if it's not registered? Hunting around the net I found a few instances of people saying it can take a while to register, so I guess it's worth leaving it a few days before trying phoning MS, only reset it on Saturday.

[130R]

RizzoTheRat said:

Will it download all the updates if it's not registered? Hunting around the net I found a few instances of people saying it can take a while to register, so I guess it's worth leaving it a few days before trying phoning MS, only reset it on Saturday.

Yes you can install updates without an active license key. When you enter the key it should either fail or succeed pretty much instantly AFAIK.