Fixing the Windows 7 is not genuine message

While I’ve run various builds of Linux for many years, I still have to routinely test my work in Windows. While I often attempt to keep my laptops able to dual-boot into Windows, that only (realistically) supports only a single version of Windows. For older versions, I generally rely upon VirtualBox and can then have different configurations available when needed, while keeping my Linux apps open too!

Occasionally, I’ve had a virtual machine running a licensed copy of Windows 7 start warning that it is not activated. This can prove to be annoying for several reasons, as such I did some research and found that others have encountered the same problem and shared the below solutions.

First method:

  1. Open a command prompt in Administrator mode.
  2. Execute “slmgr -rearm”
  3. NOTE: some sites tell you to locate and remove “slui.exe” – DO NOT DO THIS!
  4. Restart Windows
  5. Problem should be resolved

Alternative – reactive with your product key:

  1. Open a command prompt in Administrator mode.
  2. Execute “slmgr –upk
  3. Execute “slmgr –ipk (your product key)
  4. Restart Windows
  5. Problem should be resolved

REFERENCES:

Windows 7+ “GodMode”

To give you complete control over all the configurable options in Windows 7+ at a single press of a button just simply create a new folder anywhere and rename it to this:


GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}

The folder you create will now have 270 items that are to do with configurable options in Windows 7. Interestingly it also works for Windows 8.1 and 10 as well.

NOTE: Vista partially supported this feature, but was prone to crashing until the folder was removed.

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