[HELP] Screwed working Windows with fake upgrade key.

[syclone]

Sooooooo long story short had the typical Ebay OEM key for Win7 Home Premium which was perfectly valid, decided to keygen my way to Win 7 Ultimate (I wanted to change my language setting from my mothertongue to english, as it was sometimes causing issues and generally it's easier for me to have all devices in same language). Got the fake ultimate key, pop it into "Windows Anytime Upgrade".... surprise, it works! PC upgrades OS, everythings fine... except when I go into "about PC" it says "3 days before automatic activation. Activate Windows Now", so I confidently paste the key once again... but this time it responds that the key is not valid, despite having allowed me to make the upgrade before. Alright, time to downgrade then, right? WRONG. Little did I know that downgrading is apparently impossible, and now I completely butchered my favorite OS and my main PC.

 

So here's my question: what is possible to do now? Obviously Windows 7 is outdated, I know. But it's just so beautiful and easy to use that I cannot part ways from it not mention having had a working key registered to this computer. Is there a workaround to downgrade to Home without losing data? (My C drive is 1TB SSD that is 70% full, I literally have no way to copy it elsewhere, my secondary drive is a mere 500GB HDD that only has 100GB left so not an option to get files onto it either). I also have a few programs that are no longer available and/or I lost the installation files, plus some (SonicStage for my Sony NetMD recorder for instance) that are impossible to install on windows 10 (also my Canon printer driver refused to be installed on my laptop with a preinstalled win10, so that can also be problematic)

 

Option 2: I have a Windows 10 Ultimate key that SHOULD work (if not, I have a Windows 10 home install DVD, but no key). If there is absolutely no way to get windows 7 working I'd obviously rather have a working PC even if it will be awful to use. How do I perform an upgrade without clean install if that is even possible anymore? 

 

I know, I have brough it on myself, and I fully recognise that I screwed up badly (and illegally), so any help will be much appreciated  人(_ _*)

Best Regards,

Dan

[SupaKomputa]

3 minutes ago, syclone said:

keygen my way to Win 7 Ultimate

you're pirating.

[mr fobs]

You said main pc? So you have another one? You could plug the drives from your main pc to another one and take the data off you need then reset and start from scratch?

[Radium_Angel]

According to MS, you can't....

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/can-i-downgrade-from-windows-7-ultimate-to-home/ca6cda9a-3c44-40aa-880f-45b12947a880#:~:text=Please note that one cannot,Home Premium recovery%2Freinstallation method.

 

[dean_5234]

10 minutes ago, syclone said:

Got the fake ultimate key

What did you expect

[syclone]

Just now, mr fobs said:

You said main pc? So you have another one? You could plug the drives from your main pc to another one and take the data off you need then reset and start from scratch?

My secondary is a laptop which I use for university (got my Autodesk and Office suites on there since we get the education accounts), however have no way of copying files over as it is merely 256GB.

 

[Sauron]

There's a chance that if you contact Microsoft and explain the situation they'll just give you a key but since buying OEM keys off ebay is pretty close to piracy I wouldn't hold my breath. Everything else you listed is just piracy.

[Radium_Angel]

1 minute ago, syclone said:

My secondary is a laptop which I use for university (got my Autodesk and Office suites on there since we get the education accounts), however have no way of copying files over as it is merely 256GB.

 

External USB powered hard drives are cheap right now....time to buy a big one and start backing up everything

[Kilrah]

3 minutes ago, Sauron said:

There's a chance that if you contact Microsoft and explain the situation

W7 is out of support so MS will not even talk about it if you call. 

 

You'll likely have no choice but to clean reinstall.

 

13 minutes ago, syclone said:

plus some (SonicStage for my Sony NetMD recorder for instance) that are impossible to install on windows 10

SonicStage works fine on W10.

 

Anyway, piracy-related discussions are not allowed on this forum.

[WkdPaul]

16 hours ago, syclone said:

I have a Windows 10 Ultimate key that SHOULD work

As added information, there are no Ultimate edition for Windows 10.

 

Please, anyone reading this, get legitimate keys for your OS.

 

 

(thread still locked)