Genuine Windows 7 Professional Won’t Activate

So you got the “Windows 7 Professional product key you typed is invalid for activation.” message. And you know you have a valid key. There are two things you can try. Activate by typing a different product key, even though you’re using the same one. Or activate by phone manually.

Activate by typing in a different product key.

When prompted, click on the option that says, “Type a different product key” (even if you’re using the same key you’ve always used). Then type in your product key and click “Next”. Wait while Windows attempts to activate. If all goes well, within a minute, you should see a screen saying “Activation was successful” and that Windows is Genuine.

Activate by phone.

Now, if that didn’t work for whatever reason, you can try activating Windows 7 Pro manually by phone. You can kick-start the process by Clicking Start, and in the Search box type: slui.exe 4 and select launch it. Select your country in the pull-down menu and follow the necessary steps.

Additional reading:

1. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-windows_install/product-key-you-typed-is-invalid-for-activation/b6f0e1c6-7da0-4ba9-b120-15869227742f
2. https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/genuine-windows-7-professional-but-wont-activate/3c0dcc27-2e3d-4f51-a1ec-f08c7f44b2a8