I just got my Win7 working again. Not sure what happened but I think the HD died as I couldnt format or install anything on it, bought a new HD and everything is OK, now all I gotta do is reinstall everything. As for the error "A victim of software counterfeiting" I do not know. When I can retrieve the photo off my iPhone I will post it here. I still think Win7 is good.
That copy of win 7 is not full version but beta, which means its for evaluating purpose given to you only. When that evaluation time expires, obviously you can not update that copy anymore and therefore the message. Of course there are many ways people go around this issue and continue using it, but thats beyond this forum.
when you said that you updated did you do a clean install or did you do an upgrade its the only thing I can think of that may cause the error. I am sure you would have done a clean install you seem to know what you are doing from what you have said so far as far as I can tell.
Good one maybe that is/was the problem. I had to replace the HD because I couldnt do anything with it, no format nothing. Maybe the problem with HD was coincidental. I will replace the battery tomorrow.
It wouldn't be bad to read terms and conditions, its possible that new hard drive is the reason, I mean new installation. Microsoft might think you are trying to install it on more than one PC, or redistributing it. Since once installed it has to be activated on-line, and they have you there already activated after installation with everything (CPU number, motherboard and so on) the same but different hard drive...just a thought, if other things fail to fix the problem.
Unfortunately for you, You can install this distro on up to 3 Computers per Product Key. So that is not the cause for this error sorry to give you this news. I am completely at a loss as to what caused this problem.
It wouldn't be bad to read terms and conditions, its possible that new hard drive is the reason, I mean new installation. Microsoft might think you are trying to install it on more than one PC, or redistributing it. Since once installed it has to be activated on-line, and they have you there already activated after installation with everything (CPU number, motherboard and so on) the same but different hard drive...just a thought, if other things fail to fix the problem.
The error was before I reinstalled everything. The PC was ok when I shut it down and when I restarted the PC the next morning that was the error I got. Whatever the reason Win7 is now up and running normally now after reinstalling on another drive. I replaced the battery on the Mainboard reset all the parameters and everything is OK.
Once Win7 is released officially I will be able to purchase Win7 at a very low cost here in Oz. As an engineering teacher I get software on whats known as a "work at home" licence not sure of the cost at this time but I paid $48 for Vista Ultimate.
I've had Windows 7 Ultimate (the official version) installed for a few weeks now and I must say its very very sweet. Installation is a little problematic though. I resisted the urge to ever go to vista (rightly so as it turns out) so I've been on XP for a while now. You can not upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 without it doing a wipe of your XP drive. That's right folks, Microsoft in their wisdom don't offer a clean upgrade path.
You could upgrade XP to vista then vista to windows 7 - but who's going to try that?
What I eventually did was grabbed 100Gb of partition space on one of my drives - I have several 1TB drives on my pc, turned that into a windows 7 drive and installed there. I also turned the machine into a dual boot - which windows 7 makes it pretty easy to do. So now I can boot into windows XP or Windows 7 and windows 7 still sees ALL my other drives and I didn't lose anything.
As an operating system, so far its the cleanest booting and fastest booting out of the Microsoft Operating systems. In fact so easy was the install I'm still looking over my shoulder wondering where all the bad experiences went...
I've had Windows 7 Ultimate (the official version) installed for a few weeks now and I must say its very very sweet. Installation is a little problematic though. I resisted the urge to ever go to vista (rightly so as it turns out) so I've been on XP for a while now. You can not upgrade from Windows XP to Windows 7 without it doing a wipe of your XP drive. That's right folks, Microsoft in their wisdom don't offer a clean upgrade path.
You could upgrade XP to vista then vista to windows 7 - but who's going to try that?
What I eventually did was grabbed 100Gb of partition space on one of my drives - I have several 1TB drives on my pc, turned that into a windows 7 drive and installed there. I also turned the machine into a dual boot - which windows 7 makes it pretty easy to do. So now I can boot into windows XP or Windows 7 and windows 7 still sees ALL my other drives and I didn't lose anything.
As an operating system, so far its the cleanest booting and fastest booting out of the Microsoft Operating systems. In fact so easy was the install I'm still looking over my shoulder wondering where all the bad experiences went...
Apparently Microsoft don't even recommend an upgrade from Vista either as far as I can tell they want a complete break from vista's file systems and believe that an upgrade from vista will bring problems into the new install and I think they are right anything that has any part of vista in it can only cause problems.
In my experience when upgrading from one O/S to the next, it is always best to follow three simple steps:
1. Backup your data.
2. Format your hard drive.
3. Install new O/S, do not go the upgrade route.
No matter how hard they try, the upgrade path is never without problems.
As for Win7, I've tried it and it pretty clean and as others have pointed out the main issue will be getting signed drivers and some older hardware to work.
I'll be sticking with XP though at work as we can't run Vista with some of our engineering CAD tools and development MCU tools. Heh we even have an old Win98 box for some of the programming rigs.