Activation failures and (not genuine) notifications around January 8, 2019, on volume-licensed Windows 7 Service Pack 1 KMS clients

This article provides a solution to an issue where users may receive the Windows Activation or "Windows is not genuine" notifications starting at or after 10:00 UTC, January 8, 2019.

Applies to:   Windows 7 Service Pack 1
Original KB number:   4487266

Summary

This article applies to volume-licensed Windows 7 Service Pack 1 devices that use Key Management Service (KMS) activation and have the KB 971033 update installed. Some users may receive the Windows Activation or "Windows is not genuine" notifications starting at or after 10:00 UTC, January 8, 2019.

On January 9, 2019, we reverted a change that was made to Microsoft Activation and Validation servers. For devices that continue to report activation and "not genuine" notifications, you should remove KB 971033 by following the steps in the Resolution section.

Windows editions that support volume-licensing activation include the following:

• Windows 7 Professional
• Windows 7 Professional N
• Windows 7 Professional E
• Windows 7 Enterprise
• Windows 7 Enterprise N
• Windows 7 Enterprise E

For Windows editions that experience activation and "not genuine" errors that are not caused by the Microsoft Activation and Validation server change around January 8, 2019, we recommend that you follow standard activation troubleshooting.

Symptoms

1. You receive a Windows is not genuine error message after you log on.

   

2. A This copy of windows is not genuine watermark appears in the bottom-right corner of the Windows desktop on a black background.

   

3. The slmgr /dlv output reports error 0xC004F200.

   

4. Activations that are made by using the slmgr /ato command fails and return the following message:

   Windows is running within the non-genuine notification period. Run 'slui.exe' to go online and validate Windows.

   

5. The following events are logged in the event log.

Cause

A recent update to the Microsoft Activation and Validation unintentionally caused a "not genuine" error on volume-licensed Windows 7 clients that had KB971033 installed. The change was introduced at 10:00:00 UTC on January 8, 2019, and was reverted at 4:30:00 UTC on January 9, 2019.

Windows 7 devices that have KB971033 installed but did not experience this issue between the time of the change (10:00:00 UTC, January 8, 2019) and the time of the reversion of that change (4:30:00 UTC, January 9, 2019) should not experience the issue that is described in this article.

KB971033 contains the following text:

"Note For an Enterprise customer who uses Key Management Service (KMS) or Multiple Activation Key (MAK) volume activation, we generally recommend to NOT install this update in their reference image or already deployed computers. This update is targeted at consumer installs of Windows using RETAIL activation."

We strongly recommend that you uninstall KB971033 from all volume-licensed Windows 7-based devices. This includes devices that are not currently affected by the issue that is mentioned in the Symptoms section.

Resolution

To determine whether KB 971033 is installed, use one of the following methods.

• Open the Installed Updates item in Control Panel (Control Panel > Windows Update > View update history > Installed Updates), and then look for Update for Microsoft Windows (KB971033) in the list.

• Run the following command in a Command Prompt window as administrator, and then look for "Microsoft-Windows-Security-WindowsActivationTechnologies-package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~7.1.7600.16395" in the results:

  dism /online /get-packages
  

• Run the following command at a command prompt, and then look in the results for an indication that KB 971033 is installed:

  wmic qfe where HotFixID="KB971033"
  

• Run the following command in Windows PowerShell, and then look in the results for an indication that KB 971033 is installed:

  Get-Hotfix -id KB971033
  

  If KB 971033 is currently installed, use one of the following methods to remove the update. We recommend that you restart the system after the update is removed.

• In the Installed Updates item in Control Panel (Control Panel > Windows Update > View update history > Installed Updates), right-click Update for Microsoft Windows (KB971033), and then select Uninstall.

• Run the following command in a Command Prompt window as administrator:

  wusa /uninstall /kb:971033
  

• Run the following command in a Command Prompt window as administrator:

  dism /online /Remove-Package /PackageName:Microsoft-Windows-Security-WindowsActivationTechnologies-Package~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~7.1.7600.16395
  

After KB 971033 is uninstalled, or after it no longer appears as installed, rebuild the activation-related files and then reactivate the system by running the following commands in a Command Prompt window as administrator:

net stop sppuinotify
sc config sppuinotify start= disabled
net stop sppsvc
del %windir%\system32\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-0.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 /ah
del %windir%\system32\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-1.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 /ah
del %windir%\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\tokens.dat
del %windir%\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\cache\cache.dat
net start sppsvc
cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ipk <edition-specific KMS client key>
cscript c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs /ato
sc config sppuinotify start= demand

The following table lists the KMS client keys for each edition of Windows 7.

Data collection

If you need assistance from Microsoft support, we recommend you collect the information by following the steps mentioned in Gather information by using TSS for deployment-related issues.