Windows Not Genuine

If your Windows Desktop becomes black and Not Genuine is displayed at the bottom right of the Desktop, your copy of Windows might not be genuine. This can happen even if your copy of Windows is genuine. This determination depends on your Windows product key and the current hardware snapshot. For example, if you have had to change your PC motherboard then your snapshot will not match the snapshot that was taken when Windows was installed. In other words, it looks like your Windows has been installed on a completely different PC.

Although this is an extreme example, people have had this occur when they have changed Hard Disks or even Network Interface Cards (NIC's). A specific example is where a PC has one copy of Windows installed, and then a different version of Windows is installed to another Hard Disk giving the PC dual boot capability. If the second version is Windows Server 2008 R2, you have the ability to run a Hyper-V role which allows you to run virtual machines. In this case you can turn your original version of Windows into a VHD using something like Disk2VHD. You can then set up a virtual machine of your original version which runs in a window controlled by Hyper-V. If your original snapshot included the original PC NIC and you have installed one or more new NIC's to be used by virtual machines (the preferred practice), then your VHD snapshot does not look like the original and the copy is marked as not genuine. Whether a copy of Windows is genuine or not is determined by the Genuine Advantage program. Things you need to know about this:

• You will often see the acronyms : MGA or WGA. These are the Microsoft, or Windows, Genuine Advantage programs.
• MGADiag.exe is the Microsoft Genuine Advantage Diagnostic Tool that you can use to gather data to submit a query to the MGA team. This tool will collect information and allows you to copy it (for example into a web page or to Notepad). In this information you will find the item Licence Status. If your copy of Windows is genuine the value should be Licensed.
• This link gives a step-by-step procedure for resolving this problem.
• This link tells you where to get a copy of the MGADiag.exe tool and where to post the results of running the tool.
• This link tells you how to re-activate a copy of Windows over the phone.

The links above should provide sufficient information to narrow down the actual problem and to get it resolved.