SUCCESS.... Thanks all.
My problem initially happened after I applied the key from the OEM COA for Win 7 when I installed the UPGRADE win 7 disk on the new SSD drive. Activated fine... no problems.
Later (a week?) I installed the Windows 8 upgrade downloaded from Microsoft for 40 bucks (this gave me a good key). I also installed the media player upgrade which gave me an identical key as a previous install of the media player on a desktop computer I own.
This activated for a day, but the activation failed. I got a message when I booted up a few days later that stated that this copy of windows was installed on more than one computer.
I achieved success after I called the Microsoft phone number listed in "Control Panel" "System" when I...