It certainly doesn't hurt to try this, but my guess is that there was a version of Windows on the hard drive that Setup detected, thus making the install and activation work properly. Others have reported that simply installing Windows 7 using Upgrade Media and then activating just works. When Windows 7 reboots, run the Activate Windows utility, type in your product key and activate windows. Then tap ENTER, close the command line window and reboot. In the command line window, type: slmgr /rearm Right-click this shortcut and choose 'Run as administrator.' Handle the UAC prompt. Open the Start Menu again and type cmd to display a shortcut to the Command Line utility. HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Setup/OOBE/ Then, open regedit.exe with Start Menu Search and navigate to: (You'll see an orange shield icon next to Shutdown in the Start Menu if this is the case). Thanks to Kevin Fisher and a bit of testing, I have a simple workaround that does work.Īfter performing the clean install, ensure that there are no Windows Updates pending that would require a system reboot.
You can boot and run Setup with the Upgrade media for Windows 7, but when you go to activate, it won't work. Put simply, the goal here is to clean install Windows 7 on a virgin, unused PC. Clean Install Windows 7 With Upgrade Media:
