I see a couple of instances where the user has entered the same key and the program was activated. Seems you have little to lose and much to gain by trying that.

Curious, is this a local build or factory made computer?

did you get this pc with windows 7 installed and activated on it or did you upgrade to windows 7 from vista or something?

Owbist, the laptop is a Dell that I bought from their Website and just had things put on it that I wanted. Thanks for the comment.

ravencajun: This laptop did come with Vista and was upgraded to Windows 7.

Just a little while ago, the computer gave me a message saying: Windows must be activated today". Then it gave me an option to reenter the product key. However, the product key that I have is invalid and I do not know what the product key is that maybe came with the Windows 7, as a computer person did this updrade to Windows 7 for me as a favor. Does Windows 7 come with a different Product Key? There were no papers involved. I can get in touch with him maybe tomorrow, but in the meantime, what is going to happen to my laptop, if it says this must be done today??

Thanks again for responding. I'm using my son's laptop to send this message and am backing up everything on my laptop just in case.

Any comment on what I should do now? Sorry, I don't know that much about the operation of the laptop.

Did the person who did this for you charge you for the copy he installed? It sounds like he installed it without activating it and he may have installed a copy without having a valid license. I'd contact him to find out whether the copy he installed is legitimate.

bpgreen - yes, the copy was definitely legitimate and this was done over a year ago. I'm just now having problems with it. Thanks.

yep sure sounds like it was not activated when it was installed or it was not done properly with a good key.

you can try to retrieve the key using this free tool and then use the key to activate it.
How to Find Product Keys Using Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder

I think SIW gives the key also
SIW - System Information for Windows

here are some other options
Top 13 Free Product Key Finder Programs

If this person was paid to install a legit copy of windows 7 on your pc then he is the one you really need to contact and have him make it right.

"bpgreen - yes, the copy was definitely legitimate and this was done over a year ago. I'm just now having problems with it. Thanks."

In that case, you should have a sticker with a product key.

If you don't have one, then I suspect he used a valid upgrade DVD, but he used it on enough computers that MS flagged it as a bootleg.

Typically a license is good for one PC (some are good for several PCs). If it shows up a couple of times, it's not necessarily flagged as bootleg but at some point, it reaches a point where it's clear that somebody is stealing and MS invalidates the key.

I see the messages on several forums, seems windows7 has some activation snafu & many have problems with fully legal installs suddenly asking for activation. Seems sometimes a cleaned up virus infection can start it happening too.

The reason why it catches my eye is I removed virus on a nearly new win7 laptop that had no anti-virus ... and when I went to install security essentials.. it didnt pass the genuine winsows test. Stumpped me.. I didnt have time to fiddle with it.. told her to take it back to where she bought it... have him activate it ... in asia.

Thank you all for your input. I took my laptop to the computer person and they have taken care of the problem. He reinstalled Windows 7 and Microsoft Office.

mikie: when I was trying to install security essentials, that is when I got a message stating that "Windows is not genuine".

Thanks again everyone.

Thanks for letting us know. It sounds like your computer guy is doing things the right way and is taking good care of you.

Reading around I see the 'Security Essentials' install searches extra hard for some of the various methods that bypass the validation or genuine tests to find those non legal installs of windows.

Maybe the microsoft is using 'Security Essentials' program just to make sure Advira and Avast and others get some business ... and to cause grief to the poorer people with slow connections.
Security Essentials is under 10mb download.. others generally seem more than 40mb downloads.

You would think of all things... a virus program would/should be one thing that microsoft would want to help people with, especially the poorer areas of world ,,,, to slow down some of this contagious stuff. Why do a genuine test at all with it?