Windows 7 Legitimizing Windows 7 Ultimate

Hello and welcome to Windows7Forums.com

In any event, unless all the activation mechanisms have been removed (in which case, reinstalling Windows 7 would be the easiest solution), you should be able to activate Windows using the following method.

Open CMD as an administrator and type "slmgr.vbs -ipk <product key here>" (without quotes and <>).
Once you've done that, the new product key is ready to be activated which can be done by typing "slmgr.vbs -ato"

If this doesn't work, if you have the disc you can boot from the disc and select "Repair PC", followed by clicking CMD (or something like that), which will open the CMD console where you can then type the following commands, one after another.

Thanks for the advice. Ended up tracking down the Tech and getting a Windows 7 disk to do a new install using my legitimate key. worked like a charm, now just have to actualize all the software....