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Aggh, my Win activation key doesn't work any more

D

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I seem to have offended the MS license key gods, because after creation of a new VM, running my copy of Win 7, the activation key has been deemed not acceptable. I think you get a set number of installs with an activation key, and the new VM must have generated a different MAC address, or something. I had to delete the previous VM because it became corrupted and unreadable by Virtualbox.
Is there any hope for this key, or am I doomed to repeat a cycle of creating a new VM every 28 days?
I suppose I could create a snapshot, and keep going back to that, but I'm still stuck in Groundhog Day I fear.
 
If an operating system is no longer receiving updates, how can they justify charging for it?.

Microsoft will continue supporting Win7 until Jan 2020, and that's just its current set date. With WinXP, mostly because Vista was such a horrid roll-out, they extended it's EoL date at least twice from what I recall, maybe even three times.
As for charging for it, they don't. MS stopped selling Win7 licenses back in Nov of last year. Any that are still being sold through retail outlets are simply being cleared away out of inventory.
 
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Is there any hope for this key, or am I doomed to repeat a cycle of creating a new VM every 28 days?
I suppose I could create a snapshot, ...

Phone activation should let you continue using your current key -- this number we've always used for the MS activation process >> 1-888-725-1047

As for VirtualBox snapshots, I found them to be really helpful a number of times (in situations involving several different Linux distros and Windows versions).
https://www.virtualbox.org/manual/ch01.html#snapshots
 
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