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Hi,
My son gave me his gaming laptop as he decided to no longer play. I decided to reboot it and erase all info that was on it. I sent it back to factory settings. All was well until I tried to personalize the pc and message came saying that I had to activate windows first. The message on activation window said that I could not activate without contacting organization admin. To me that was strange since I set it up for personal use only. I tried to find a way to get past this product key as my son doesn't have it since Windows was pre-installed on laptop when he bought it. I searched the web and found a way of deleting product key hoping to bypass it. Went to cmd prompt and followed the steps. It did not help, and now I have no activation key at all. I tried a generic one I found on a help site, but that didn't work either.
I have now rebooted again, and I keep getting different messages. The one that remains now is that Windows did not find any product key on my device and error code 0xC004F213. I have tried all the tips for this error code, but nothing works.
Can someone help? I'm really out of options.
Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.
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It looks like the last characters are the generic key. You can't use that for activation unless the server has registered a valid licence for the hardware.
Run the activation troubleshooter Settings > Update and security > Activation > Troubleshoot. In this case select Changed hardware and see what the result is.
Using the Windows Activation troubleshooter - Microsoft Support
Hi,
I attached a screenshot of the result. Forgot to mention that I'm in Portugal and the pc is in portuguese. But I think it will be easy to understand.
Also, I think I should mention that, following a tip I found on the web, I tried a generic licence. I think it's memorized on the pc.
Ref to an organisation server often points to a volume licence, illegal for a personal user.
To check the current licence status open PowerShell (Admin) and enter slmgr /dlv [press return] and post a screenshot of the result. Or give the details of the Description (3rd line) of the result screen.
