Windows 7 "Windows.Old"

[muybn]

While attempting to set up for dual-booting with Linux, I used a free program that apparently messed up my Win7 MBR or structure of my sectors. I panicked because I couldn't see anything on the disk after that. I concluded in despair that everything was lost so I got a Win7 disk from a friend. When I installed it, fortunately it straightened out what was wrong and created a separate folder called "Windows.Old" with all the contents I had before. Relief! Now, however, I'm getting messages that my installation of Windows 7 isn't "genuine" so it's time to revert back to the previous installation and license that I had, if possible, from the Windows.Old folder. I have some ideas, not the least of which is to make an Acronis image of everything I have now then try to transfer what I have in the "Windows.Old" folder to the root C:\ directory. I understand that I would probably need to do that with the disk as an external disk so that the system files are inactive while I do it. Any ideas or suggestions? Thanks in advance for your time and consideration.