Windows 7 Problems with OEM version of Windows 7

wGraves

New Member
I have been building my own machines since 1980. Over the years, probably 40 to 50 of them. Since about 1990, I have purchased the components at Fry's Electronics, most recently in Roseville CA. In December, I started converting to Windows 7. Over a period of six months, I have purchased the parts for and have built seven machines based upon the i7 quad and hex core processors, and have acquired the seven operating systems from Fry's. The three oldest ones, done mainly in November, did not have SP1 on the distribution DVDs, but those systems were upgraded to it using Microsoft Upgrade. These DVDs are marked as OEM versions, although I never specifically requested such a version.

In the last two weeks, three of the machines have been displaying a message stating:

"This pre-release version of Windows 7 will expire in n (now 3) days. To keep using Windows, back up your files, and then install any edition of Windows 7 Professional." The message appears only on the earliest three of my seven machines. I asked the manager at Fry's about it, and he informed me that Fry's isn't responsible for software after 30 days. After a $59 trouble call to Microsoft, they have agreed to replace one DVD with a retail version. I don't know if the registry will survive the transition. This may need a disk wipe and reinstall to fix it, I won't know until I try it tomorrow. Fry's disclaims all responsibility. :grumpy:

Bill Graves
 
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This is incredible guile on behalf of Fry's. They sold you pre-release discs? Can you look at the EULA and confirm that this is the case? It will be found on the disc and also when running setup. How and why were they providing OEM pre-release versions of the software to customers?
 
As you suggested, I looked at the directory of the distribution DVD. There exists the following directory:
<\\sources\license\en-us\eval\professional\license.rtf>. In this license, there is a section stating that it is a license for evaluation only. If you would like to see a copy of the file, I can probably send it to you, but I would need your coordinates.

Bill
 
[email protected]

Of course, I already believe you. However, I find this surprising and problematic. I do not have an immediate answer for you.

I would consider contacting executives at the business to see if they would be willing to resolve the problem for you. You should write an articulate letter to their executive office, or perhaps call them explaining the problem in detail.
 
I have resolved the problem with the help of Microsoft Technical Support. It seems that the part of the system which is set up to auto-deactivate consists exclusively of Service Pack I, Beta Edition. The problem may be fixed by uninstalling SP1 with Windows Update, and reinstalling a current retail version of that package. When the uninstall is completed, the OS no longer displays the "Evaluation" watermark. The deinstallation and subsequent reinstallation are, of course, quite time consuming. I started at 12:30 and I'm still working on my second machine at 5:30. But the result is infinitely better than having to wipe the C: drive along with the registry, which was the alternative. I hope that this post will save someone the time necessary to figure this out. It isn't obvious at all that the "Evaluation" advice pertains only to SP1. By the way, I have observed the problem in the 64-bit versions of Win7 Pro and Win7 Ultimate. The processors are quad and hex core i7s, the RAM complement is 12GB-24GB.

Thanks for the help,
Bill
 
I have resolved the problem with the help of Microsoft Technical Support.

Well that's 1 to Microsoft and a big 0 to Fry's. It sounds to me like you should change your supplier (who was it .. Fry's as in Fry's Electronics?). Sounds to me like they sold you a dodgy bit of software (are they actually supposed to be selling or distributing pre-release versions of Windows 7?) and then didn't want to have anything more to do with you until you came back with cash in your hand to buy something else. I certainly wouldn't go anywhere near a company that treated its customers like that!
 
Bill:
Glad to hear that you were able to resolve your issue and thanks for posting back with your solution. Hopefully it will help others as today is the date for expiration of pre-release versions of Sp1 for windows 7. Suprisingly we haven't seen a lot of this particular problem although I did address something similar a week ago, which I suspect was also the issue in that instance although we never heard back from the OP. That's why I'm grateful that you posted back with your findings and slightly suprised that the $59 support call from MS, didn't produce better results.
Welcome to the forums and Thanks for joining our community and we hope to continue to see you around.
Regards
Randy
 
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