Two days ago I came across a site with about 10 Win 7 keys posted and a "First come first served" note added. I used one of the keys, was told it was already in use, and was given the ''activate by phone" option. That worked fine and Win 7 was activated. Next day, I formatted the drive, yes - by mistake - I never knew the drugs I did back in the late 60s/early 70s would have such a long range effect I now have Win 7 re-installed, have spent the last 12 hours looking for the site with the keys - no luck. I would appreciate any help available in this matter. This is my first post here, so now I'll go look around and familiarize myself with the site. Yes, I probably should have done that first - please see above comment about the 60s and 70s.
I entered one of the keys from the page mentioned above, was told the number was in use and I could try to activate by phone. Called the number listed for my area, got an automated activation system, followed instructions and it worked.
I am not sure there is much difference. At the end of my phone activation it said something about activating VISTA, not Windows 7. I ran Belarc Advisor on this drive, shows the OS as Windows Vista Ultimate. I have build 6801, very similar to Vista.