Windows 7 profile error and "not genuine" after partition rearrange

[LeftyAce]

Hi all,

I had Windows7 and WindowsXP dual boot, and decided to get rid of the XP install. It was the first partition on the drive. I deleted the partition and expanded the Win7 partition to fill the space. This of course caused the machine to fail to boot, so I loaded up the Win7 rescue cd and told it to "fix startup errors."

Now it boots, and I get the login screen. I enter my password, and it takes forever "loading desktop." Eventually I get a blank blue desktop (no start menu or anything) and in the bottom right it says "this copy of windows is not genuine"

I can get a command prompt (by hitting ctrl-alt-delete and clicking task manager, and running it from there), but when I type slmgr -dl I get a pop up window that says there's no script engine.

If I launch explorer.exe, I get a windows-98 style start bar, my desktop icons show up, but I get an error if I try to open MyComputer or Control Panel. A baloon notification shows up on the bottom right with a message about a temporary profile.

So I think I have 2 problems: Windows thinks it needs to be reactivated, and something is messed up such that I can't launch the activation.

Any tips much appreciated!

[MikeMoss]

Hi

The problem probably started because you din't change the boot menu before removing XP.
You have to use a program like EasyBCD to correct the boot menu and remove the unwanted OS before you delete it. I found this out the hard way myself.

If you can download EasyBCD on a computer and get it to run on your computer it might help to tell it to boot to the correct OS and remove any reference to XP.

Otherwise it may be necessary to do a repair install of Windows to get it back the way is't supposed to be.

EasyBCD, boot management utility

EasyBCD - Free software downloads and software reviews - CNET Download.com

If you have service pack 1 installed and your media doesn't have it, you have to remove it before doing the repair.

Repair Install of Windows 7

Repair Install - Windows 7 Forums

How to Remove Service Pack one from Windows 7

How to uninstall Windows 7 Service Pack 1 (SP1)

Mike

[Force Flow]

The problem is that with windows, you can't change the partition or drive letter it's on, otherwise, it will invalidate all the location paths for windows (in other words, windows won't know where anything is.

The quick solution: you will have to reformat. A repair won't do it because it's not just a windows issue. All the paths for all your installed programs will be messed up too.

If you really want to try to save the installation, this *might* work, but I can't say I've actually tried it myself. The procedure is an educated guess on my part:

Add an active partition so that it precedes the windows 7 partition (use the GParted boot CD to do this if you don't already have a 3rd-party tool). If you place the partition after the windows 7 partition, this solution won't work. The partition doesn't have to be large--probably 100MB would do. Make sure you format it (NTFS is fine).

Then, boot from your windows CD and go into the windows recovery command prompt and run the "fixboot", "fixmbr" and "rebuildbcd" commands.

I'm guessing it might work after that.

[LeftyAce]

Forceflow, that did the trick! And windows didn't even need to be activated. Odd that changing the partitions around like that changed the drive letter...I always thought C: was "the partition windows is installed on" (both XP and 7 thought they were on "c").

A somewhat ugly work-around, but it worked! Thanks a bunch. I really didn't want to do a whole reinstall.

[jdeb]

That is a very slick work around. I am filing that one. very nice

[Force Flow]

Great, good to hear it worked