Help! Windows 8.1 suddenly needs activation again

[Robert]

Hello. First time posting here but I would really appreciate any help with this problem. So first the laptop I am having problems with is a Lenovo y50 that came with windows 8.1 pre-installed. Recently I have been having problems opening the pc setting app as it would immediately crash. This was not a big deal to me since I could still access settings from the control panel. However the bigger problem comes in that now I have an activation issue.

So all of a sudden my laptop, which has been running windows 8.1 for a few years now, says that windows is not activated and that I should go activate it. It shows the windows 8.1 build 9600 watermark on the right hand side. I cannot personalize anything and on the pc info it says windows is not activated even though it was for the past few years.

I went to cmd prompt to find the product key and even used a third party key finding software to find the value. But when I went to input the product key, Microsoft kept saying it it's not right.

I was worried this might mean I have a virus on the computer but I did a malware bytes scan and it found nothing. And I did a disk check scan and repair just the night before. I currently use this laptop mainly for playing games and browsing the internet, both which still works. I really don't want to do a clean restart on my laptop since I have a lot of files on here from over the years. However I am concerned that not activating windows will cause future problems. I would be grateful to anyone who could offer some help because this is really bugging me. Thank you in advance.

EDIT: I did a sfc/scan and a dism scan thanks to Fjeuber for recommending this but I got the fact that there r some corrupt files from the sfc scan. So I did a dism / online/ cleanup-image /rstore health, and I get error 0x800f081f. Not sure how to proceed from here.

[Ezahee]

Open command prompt as Administrator and run the following command, replacing D: with the drive letter where the ISO is mounted:

Code Select Expand

DISM /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:WIM:D:\sources\install.wim:1 /LimitAccess

After DISM completes, run:

Code Select Expand

sfc /scannow

This should repair any corruption.

[Wompe1959]

Any update?

[Wompe1959]

Up!

flappy dunk

[barkerxavierr]

I can't find any new updates

Sprunki Retake

[OldNavyGuy]

Hello. First time posting here but I would really appreciate any help with this problem. So first the laptop I am having problems with is a Lenovo y50 that came with windows 8.1 pre-installed. Recently I have been having problems opening the pc setting app as it would immediately crash. This was not a big deal to me since I could still access settings from the control panel. However the bigger problem comes in that now I have an activation issue.

So all of a sudden my laptop, which has been running windows 8.1 for a few years now, says that windows is not activated and that I should go activate it. It shows the windows 8.1 build 9600 watermark on the right hand side. I cannot personalize anything and on the pc info it says windows is not activated even though it was for the past few years.

I went to cmd prompt to find the product key and even used a third party key finding software to find the value. But when I went to input the product key, Microsoft kept saying it it's not right.

I was worried this might mean I have a virus on the computer but I did a malware bytes scan and it found nothing. And I did a disk check scan and repair just the night before. I currently use this laptop mainly for playing games and browsing the internet, both which still works. I really don't want to do a clean restart on my laptop since I have a lot of files on here from over the years. However I am concerned that not activating windows will cause future problems. I would be grateful to anyone who could offer some help because this is really bugging me. Thank you in advance.

EDIT: I did a sfc/scan and a dism scan thanks to Fjeuber for recommending this but I got the fact that there r some corrupt files from the sfc scan. So I did a dism / online/ cleanup-image /rstore health, and I get error 0x800f081f. Not sure how to proceed from here.

This was posted on reddit 6 years ago...

https://www.reddit.com/r/windows/comments/c5mgnk/help_windows_81_suddenly_needs_activation_again/

[dking02]

The original post appears to have been a practical joke to see how many folks would respond to it. As OldNavyGuy discovered, the originator (Robert) copied a 6-year old message off reddit and re-posted it here. The first four replies appear to be attempts to elicit responses when no forum members fell for the hoax. The four participating accounts (Robert, Ezahee, Wompe1959, barkerxavierr) all look suspect - all created on the same day of their initial message in this thread and with no subsequent messages.

The lengthy original post was on a PC issue not related to Home Updater and should have been quickly and politely removed on that basis before 4000+ views were accumulated.