IE8 test VM activation blocked

Lorenzo Dalla Vecchia 96 Reputation points
2021-05-05T20:00:07.427+00:00

Hi,

I' am using the IE8 on Win7 (x86) Virtual Machine (installed on Hyper-V) to perform testing on IE8.
Recently, it has become impossible to activate Windows 7 inside the VM because its product key has been blocked by Microsoft.

This effectively reduces the usage period to just 10 days before I have to reinstall the VM.

Has the product key been blocked by accident?

Thanks.

PS: sorry for choosing a somewhat unrelated tag but I could not find any existing tag that covered my question.

Edit

Here is a screenshot of the error.
The error code is 0xC004C003.

94272-blocked-product-key.png

Windows
Windows
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  1. Lorenzo Dalla Vecchia 96 Reputation points
    2021-05-06T13:25:17.16+00:00

    I ended up using the Windows 10 VM which for some reason still works.

    I don't know why the product key is blacklisted and the VMs that can still be downloaded from https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/ are not usable.
    Microsoft should fix them (by replacing their embedded product key) or take them down.

    Thanks everyone for your help.

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  1. Dave Patrick 426.1K Reputation points MVP
    2021-05-06T12:17:26.017+00:00

    problematic product key is not "mine": it is free for anyone to download and usually lasted 90 days

    Sound suspicious and likely the reason it is now blocked.

    --please don't forget to Accept as answer if the reply is helpful--