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General discussion

Suddenly getting "Copy of windows not genuine" notice

Apr 16, 2011 1:37AM PDT

I did a virus cleanup and several things were deleted when the clean-up was done, and now there is "Windows Vista (TM) Build 6002 This copy of Windows is not genuine" down at the lower right corner. Vista was on the damn computer when I bought it and I haven't changed anything. What gives??

Gateway Computer GT5668E
AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual Core Processor
3.00 GB RAM

Discussion is locked

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Sadly
Apr 16, 2011 1:48AM PDT

This is one of the new virus/trojan/malware problems. These can damage the OS to the point you see this message.

While the machine came with the OS, let's hope you have or created the all important restore media as repair is uncertain.

That is, if you look around you find folk reinstalling.
Bob

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Soo, what do you do?
Oct 1, 2011 7:39PM PDT

You got the message, "this copy of windows is not genuine". Now what?

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In fact two suggestions were made
Oct 1, 2011 10:07PM PDT

The first - Malware damage. Malware can cause the OS to think it is not genuine. Possible solution scan for viruses, then scan for other malware.

The second - if that fails, then usually the only remaining option is to reinstall the OS.

This is not one of those, 'click here to fix' problems.

Mark

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Use your backups
Oct 2, 2011 1:33AM PDT

I think my favorite comment the moderators have is " you only lose that which has not been backed up " or something close to that. lol

At the point that your getting this message and using a restore point does not fix it then the next step would be to go to your backups. If you have not been making backups or you have just been making backups of your data and not the C drive then your only choice will be to reinstall the OS.

After the reinstall you should look into the imaging software that is available so you do not have to go thru this again.

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Options
Oct 2, 2011 2:05AM PDT

If you have the restore/recovery discs, use the "repair option" that returns the OS to install state. This is NOT the restore point feature of the OS itself when it is up and running. This is also NOT the full re-install of the OS which is listed as another option using the recovery discs. Either restore or repair becomes an option for you at this point. Now, beware of any future malware or corruption source, which *may* return the OS status to non-genuine report, if a malware problem returns. If some corruption which the OS files are compromised becomes less than desirable and issue same warning. Hopefully, doing one of the two options provided should correct the problem. report back