Activating Windows 7 Using Upgrade Version After a Clean Install

Posted by DC | January 5th, 2010

I recently had to wipe my hard drive and reinstall Windows 7 Professional in an attempt to rid myself of a persistent system freezing issue. I later realized that a hardware component of my system was the actual culprit to the freezing issue, but that’s another matter entirely.

In any event, I took my Windows 7 Professional Upgrade DVD and started the process of installation on a fresh drive. Upon the first appearance of the activation window, I entered my product key and tried activation. Windows responded that the key was invalid. No matter, this actually happened the first time I installed my copy of Windows 7 back in October, so I knew I could bypass this screen by deleting the product key and pressing enter. I would have 30 days to reenter my product key and activate Windows.

A few days later after reinstalling all my programs and getting the system configured, I tried activating again. And again. And again. I tried other methods to no success after being on hold with Microsoft phone support for longer than I cared.

That’s when I stumbled onto this method of activating Windows 7 that I had not seen before. I don’t know the original source, but I obtained the below instructions from mydigitallife.info.

Clean Install and Activate Windows 7 with MediaBootInstall Registry Hack

  1. After booting up, ensure that no Windows Updates pending task which requires a system reboot to finish installing.Tip: Normally, an orange-colored shield icon will be displayed next to Shutdown button in the Start Menu Power Button or at notification tray area if a restart is required. If reboot is required, restart the computer to allow any pending updates is installed.
  2. Run Registry Editor (RegEdit).
  3. Navigate to the following registry key:HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Setup\OOBE
  4. In the right pane, change the value data for MediaBootInstall from 1 to 0. Leave the base as Hexadecimal.
  5. Open an elevated command prompt as administrator.
  6. Run the command below to reset Windows 7 activation status:
    slmgr.vbs -rearm
  7. Reboot the computer.
  8. Run the Activate Windows utility (accessible from bottom section of Control Panel -> System and Security -> System, or type Activate Windows into Start Search), type in the upgrade product key and activate Windows.

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