Hi. I'm wondering if someone would be kind enough to answer a question that I have. Recently, I added a new piece of hardware to my gaming PC that was running Windows 7. All of a sudden, Microsoft comes back telling me that my operating system was not valid. I couldn't get them to accept my legal registration key again. Talk about being mad and frustrating. So, I had to go online and purchase another key again so I could reinstall Windows 7 and, thus, upgrade to Windows 10.

Now, I'm think of adding a new graphics card to this PC that I also run TrainSimulator on, but I'm reluctant to do so because of the problem that I had with the other one. I'm wondering why Microsoft does this and why there isn't any way of getting to them and telling them that I am running a legal version of their operating system and to cut out the nonsense. Even using the phone method of trying to reestablish my reg key didn't work. Has anyone else out there had the same problem and how did you deal with it.

Thanks.

Robert

Something is missing here. Why did you need another key for that original W7?

The only time I've seen that is when a client used a VLK and Microsoft invalidated the VLK. As well they should as it had been shared on some torrent.

MS keys its system based upon certain hardware parameters. Sometimes if you add new cruft to the system, the key no longer "recognizes" the system. One of the reasons why I NEVER use Windows operating systems... Chances are that if you add a new video adapter, the same thing will happen. MS Windows, the gift that keeps on taking.

commented: Yes - This is the correct answer. +9

This sounds weird to me for some reason.
The only time this happened to me is when I changed motherboards and had an OEM OS . If the OS is OEM , it becomes dead as it's embedded into the MB.
I've changed GPU's , Ram and HDD's without this happening.
The other times I've seen this occur is if the OS is some hack or torrent.

You can go ahead with the installation as you have the original key with you.

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