I bought a 2nd hand laptop a year or so ago, complete with MS Windows & Office. It all worked fine until earlier this month.
The system is now prompting me to activate Windows (8.1) and asking for a licence key for Office. I don’t have these, and the previous owner has gone away..
How do I proceed, and if necessary where can I buy legit software at a sensible price?

Worst case scenario you can buy windows 7 official for about £20, and you sooner rather than later be prompted for a free windows 10 upgrade.

Not much you can do about office though unless you pirate it or just buy it. Libreoffice is a pretty good free alternative though if you don’t need advanced Ms office features.

Sounds like it was running pirate windows and office and it’s flagged up during an update.

Install ubuntu and open office for free?

Where did you buy the laptop – does sound like it had a dodgy copy of the two installed.

Upgrade to Win 10. It’s significantly nicer to use than 8.1 and has an amnesty ie. gives you a legitimate OS.

Open Office / Libre are both excellent and free and available for MS as well as *nix.

Yep try for the update/upgrade to cure windows. Office no chance probably.

If the laptop has a recovery partition it could be OEM licensed via that so rebuilt from that may work out for you, just back up your data and do a fresh start on everything.

What happens when you try and activate Win 8.1?

http://www.microsoftstore.com/store/msaus/en_AU/pdp/Windows-10-Home/productID.320412300?s_kwcid=AL!4249!3!82729089797!b!!g!!win%2B8%20price&WT.mc_id=pointitsem+Google+Adwords+Windows+8&ef_id=VjbPJwAAARPEWyfr:20160322054210:s
Win 10 straight from MS here…
Office 365 could be worth a look for multiple users – I get 5 users so would do a household fairly well.

Amnesty never happened so no free lunch that way.

+1 to trying the recovery platform route, if its there you should get a prompt at the boot screen, most major manufacturers use them. If no recovery sector then a cheap copy of 7 followed by upgrade is the way to go.

As for office, your work might be in the scheme that gives you a cheap copy for £20 or so. Or a friend’s work. Or Libreoffice as a free alternative.

The key gets stored in the BIOS if it’s Windows 8 onwards, so a recovery should work even if you’ve wiped the entire hard drive.

Alternatively, install Gentoo.

Is there a CoA sticker on it anywhere?

I’ve looked – there is a sticker but it’s not a hologram so I doubt it’s genuine. Bugger. The machine is running 8.1 pro, the expensive version, so I’ll hope to downgrade after backing up data to an external drive.

Can you recommend a cheap yet legal supplier? Ninfan has used SoftwareGeeks, but they look somewhat underpriced.

On my 2nd hand lenovos – the CoA sticker was beneath the battery – still had to phone the automated ‘windows hotline’to get the reinstall confirmed.

there is a sticker but it’s not a hologram so I doubt it’s genuine.

What’s it for?

If it was originally Windows 8.1 then the license key is stored in the BIOS. It’s actually stored in something called SLIC and MSDM, described here:

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/hardware/dn653305%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

So just reinstall Windows 8 and you should be good to go. You can get the install media from Microsoft’s website.

I found this out migrating a Windows install to a Linux hosted VM; YMMV.

I’ve looked – there is a sticker but it’s not a hologram so I doubt it’s genuine.

We have a Dell like that – completely genuine just shite stickers. After a while they wised up and put them under the batteries like the Lenovo above.

Do you work in an office full of PCs? Plenty of CoA stickers around with keys that aren’t being used…

Cougar, thanks
The sticker says it’s for Windows 8
I can’t beg licence keys because I’ve given up work after 25 years of being supplied with work laptops. That’s why I bought this thing.

I’ve not installed or reinstalled an OS for about 15 years, so have no idea how to proceed.

So just reinstall Windows 8 and you should be good to go. You can get the install media from Microsoft’s website.

Might be worth trying a system recovery first. Then shoot it in the head and upgrade to W10. (-:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-GB/windows-8/restore-refresh-reset-pc

Actually, belay that. You said Windows is prompting for activation; what happens when you try?

Random thought also, is your time / date / timezone correct?

Yes, date & timezone etc are correct.
When I try to activate online, it says I can’t
It also prompts for a product key which I don’t have 🙂

the owner of the software might have activated it on another system, or the keys could have been blacklisted for piracy or something like that. If you are a student you can get Windows and office free/cheap, if not then it’s gonna cost a fair bit unless you don’t mind software piracy

When I try to activate online, it says I can’t

What if you choose the phone option?

.. that doesn’t appear as an option.
I get the message: Windows can’t activate. Try again later.
Looks like I need to spend some cash

Type slmgr /dlv at a cmd prompt and tell me what it says? (You can use ctrl-c to copy the text even though it looks like you can’t – this is true of most Windows dialogue boxes, pro tip)

I have no idea how long it is since I used the command line. So many years…

—————————
Windows Script Host
—————————
Software licensing service version: 6.3.9600.16497

Name: Windows(R), Professional edition

Description: Windows(R) Operating System, VOLUME_KMSCLIENT channel

Activation ID: c06b6981-d7fd-4a35-b7b4-054742b7af67

Application ID: 55c92734-d682-4d71-983e-d6ec3f16059f

Extended PID: 06401-02615-000-000000-03-2057-9600.0000-0212015

Product Key Channel: Volume:GVLK

Installation ID: 545743083836762503045956824242443432713185140813433067702192643

Partial Product Key: 9D6T9

License Status: Notification

Notification Reason: 0xC004F00F.

Remaining Windows rearm count: 1000

Remaining SKU rearm count: 1001

Trusted time: 24/03/2016 17:23:18

Configured Activation Type: All

Please use slmgr.vbs /ato to activate and update KMS client information in order to update values.

—————————
OK
—————————

I think we’re humped.

I need to read this properly when I’m not trying to get out of work, but that looks like it’s been licensed via a corporate network and it’s now timed out because it’s not on that network any more.

Hold the line please, caller.

Right, home now.

GVLK is a Generic Volume Licensing Key; if you like, it’s a ‘dummy’ key that allows you to get up and running until you can register properly. MS make these publicly available.

VOLUME_KMSCLIENT implies a Key Management Server, which is a server you can run on a corporate network to validate and control Windows (and Office) licensing. As I said above, I can only conclude that this is an ex-work laptop and it’s now getting grouchy because it’s not spoken to the KMS for too long.

The “notification reason” 0xC004F00F is covered here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/938450

The Software Licensing Server reported that the hardware ID binding is beyond level of tolerance.

In English, this is talking about a hardware change, typically a motherboard swap causes this sort of thing. Regardless of cause it’s moot here anyway because the ‘fix’ is to resync it with the KMS, which we don’t have access to.

---

We have a few options now.

We can try a factory reset in order to restore the original image, as per the Microsoft link I posted earlier. I’d expect this to fail as a corporate install is likely to have destroyed the recovery data, but it’s worth a punt.

If the laptop shipped with Windows 8, you might get away with downloading W8 from MS’s website. I can’t remember off the top of my head whether Windows 8 requires OEM media though; the preinstallation activation used by OEMs requires a certificate in the media under certain revisions of Windows and I can’t remember when exactly that changed. I’ll have a rummage after I’ve eaten.

Push comes to shove, I have access to a couple of Windows 7 Pro OEM licences from a few machines we’ve just decommissioned at work. We could try to get W7 going on it, then upgrade to W10 once it’s activated (but again, I’m not sure offhand how arsey an OEM licence is going to be on a different manufacturer’s hardware). It does break the MS licensing T&Cs, but as it does actually have it’s own licence that we can’t get at I don’t really have any moral compunctions over that. The end goal is the same regardless of how we get there.

Oh, and,

Take backups of everything you want to keep (but you do that already, right?).

At some point you’re gonna have to draw a line between coughing up £20 for a legitimate win 7, and get the free win 10 upgrade..

How much more faffing is worth £20?

Cougar, you are going beyond the call of duty, thank you so much.
Mattyfez is right, if I can install a legit copy of 7 over the current 8.1 then it’s worth the money.
I’ll just hope that I choose the right online shop for a download and key 🙂
Yes, backups taken.

Where are you geographically, out of interest? Is it practical to hand it off to me and throw that £20 at a STW-approved charity du jour?

Cougar, I’m in Bristol so a handover isn’t practicable.
I assume that you’re in the Hebden / Mytho area?

A little to the left, I’m in Lancashire. Not that that helps, mind.

Entirely up to you, but I’m happy to try and fettle it if you want to courier it to me. Or we can carry on here if you like.

Actually, I’ve just had a better idea.

The latest build of W10 will accept valid W7 / W8.1 keys. What you could do is this. Use the Media Creator tool (from MS’s website) to build a W10 Pro installer on a USB pendrive. Run it, tell it to keep nothing – this will hose your existing install and start again. Feed it a W7 Pro OEM key which I can give you when I get back to work on Tuesday, job jobbed. I think.

The fly in the ointment here of course is Office. Three options.

LibreOffice. Broadly MS Office compatible open-source office suite, free.

MS HUP programme. If your workplace is signed up to the scheme you can get a full copy of MS Office for a smidge under ten quid. Check with your IT department.

You can get hugely discounted copies of Office from software4students. Some require an .ac.uk email address for verification though.

Sounds wonderful, thank you.
I’ve installed LibreOffice,I think that & google docs will provide all I need.

Slight thread revival/hijack, but where are people getting legit Win7 for £20?