Computer was Dell laptop with Windows 7 Professional SP1 COA. Then I did the free upgrade to W10 Pro. Then I used Aomei Partition Assistant to resize my 128GB SSD so I had 55GB free. I reinstalled W7 and now have a dual boot machine with both 10 and 7. (MBR) The only issue is: after using Windows 10 and then booting to Windows 7, I receive a message that Windows 7 isn't geniune. It's not a huge problem - I simply re-enter the Windows 7 key from my COA and it's activated again. But why does it happen? When I boot Windows 10, does it think (or report) that no other Windows OS can exist on the laptop?
You probably reinstalled wrong way if your dell machine came with windows 7 pre-installed then you have slic 2.1 in bios you should have used dell 7 professional dvd it would contain oem:slp key with dell certificate to pre-actvate machine not the oem:coa key.
You busted me! (or rather I busted myself) - Used murphy78's Win7 SP1 x64 5-in-1 June 2015 Update to install. Wanted to save time with all the updates. Turns out I have a Dell OEM W7 SP1 x64 iso, didn't think to use it. And now, as usual, your reward for assisting a MDL member are more questions: 1 - If I switch off the wifi, turn on my laptop, boot to W10, use disk administrator to remove the drive letter from the W7 partition, then enable the wifi - will that prevent W10 from doing whatever it is doing? 2 - If not, is there anything else I can do to block W10? 3 - Seeing that I have a Dell OEM DVD, is there any way to copy/paste required certificates? Obviously, I'm trying to avoid a time consuming reinstallation. 4 - Even if I did a reinstall with the correct media, could/would W10 still deactivate it?
I think that if you just use Daz's Loader it will insert the correct certs and key for you in Windows 7.
yes daz' loader will insert the proper cert and key that your OEM dvd would also do. It wont install itself if it doesn't need to, and it doesn't need to.
"1 - If I switch off the wifi, turn on my laptop, boot to W10, use disk administrator to remove the drive letter from the W7 partition, then enable the wifi - will that prevent W10 from doing whatever it is doing?" I had to try this out. I did, and it works. With the W7 partition hidden from W10, it doesn't get "stomped on". Four cycles of "boot W10, boot W7" and W7 remains genuine and activated. Be nice to know exactly what/how W10 was doing when the W7 partition was visible to it. But I think I will quit while I'm ahead. Thanks for all the suggestions. I may backup with Acronis, undo my version of the fix and go with Daz's loader, just for giggles.
Not sure if daz is busy today, but I did punt your thread to him. Might give that a go. or this more info This is good info, should be a sticky lol
EFA11 - My boot loader is legacy and W7 is the default. I thought for sure W10 would stomp the boot loader and give me the "metro/modern ui" one, but it never happened. Probably because W7 was installed after W10 - was a little surprised that W7 had no problem recognizing W10.
Booted W7. Ran Daz loader to get the proper certificate and key (which I would have if I installed from Dell media, just like urie said). Then booted W10 and unhid (assigned drive letter) to the W7 partition and rebooted to W7. And, just like everyone else already knew, W7 remained genuine & activated. No more whining from W10 for using a COA key. Stick a fork in this thead. It's done. And thanks again!