Earlier we come with fixes on Black Screen Of Death and Windows 7 Shortcuts Disappearing Problem, now here is another fix for Windows 7. A strange ‘Windows Genuine‘ error when you are not using a pirated copy of Windows 7.

I already faced it once during Windows 7 beta test, suddenly Windows 7 unable to recognize the key which I get during RC download and come with “Windows is not Genuine” error. As beta test is over that time, it is hard for me to get alternate key, hopefully somebody share a Windows 7 key on YouTube which save my day. But from now you don’t need to follow my way. Microsoft providing us some instruction to fix that problem.

Symptoms:

Immediately after you log on, you see the following Windows Activation window:

Windows is not genuine
Your computer might not be running a counterfeit copy of Windows.
0×80070005

You may also notice the following symptoms:

The computer desktop background is black, and you receive the following error message on the bottom right corner of the screen:

“This copy of Windows is not genuine”

You receive the following error message when you view the System Properties: (Control Panel / System and Security / System)

“You must activate today. Activate Windows now”

If you try to use slmgr.vbs /dlv to view the licensing status, you receive the following message:

Error: 0×80070005 Access denied: the requested action requires elevated privileges

Note: This error message may also occur when a command that is being executed requires an elevated command prompt and is unrelated to the issue discussed here.

Solution:

To resolve this issue, you can either disable the policy setting (Method A), or edit the permissions to provide the Licensing Service the required permissions (Method B).

Method A: Disable the Plug and Play Policy

1. Determine the source of the policy . To do this, follow these steps:

a. On the client experiencing the Activation error, run the Resultant Set of Policy wizard by clicking Start, Run and entering rsop.msc as the command.

b. Visit the following location:

Computer Configuration / Policies / Windows Settings /Security Settings / System Services /

If the Plug and Play service is configured through a Group Policy setting, you see it here with settings other than Not Defined. Additionally, you can see which Group Policy is applying this setting.

2. Disable the Group Policy settings and force the Group Policy to be reapplied.

a. Edit the Group Policy that is identified in Step 1 and change the setting to “Not Defined.” Or, follow the section below to add the required permissions for the Network Service account.

b. Force the Group Policy setting to reapply: gpupdate /force (a restart of the client is sometimes required)

Method B: Edit the permissions of the Group Policy:

1. Open the Group Policy that is identified in Method A, Step 1 above, and open the corresponding Group Policy setting.

2. Click the Edit Security button, and then click the Advanced button.

3. In the Advanced Security Settings for Plug and Play window click Add and then add the SERVICE account. Then, click OK

4. Select the following permissions in the Allow section and then click OK:

Query template
Query status
Enumerate dependents
Interrogate
User-defined control
Read permissions

Note: The Previous rights are the minimum required permissions.

5. Run gpupdate /force after you apply the previous permissions to the Group Policy setting.

6. Verify that the appropriate permissions are applied with the following command:

sc sdshow plugplay

The following are the rights applied to the Plug and Play service in SDDL:

D:(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;SY)
(A;;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;BA)
(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;IU)
(A;;CCLCSWLOCRRC;;;SU)
S:(AU;FA;CCDCLCSWRPWPDTLOCRSDRCWDWO;;;WD)

(A;;CC LC SW LO CR RC ;;;SU is an Access Control Entry (ACE) that allows the following rights to “SU” (SDDL_SERVICE – Service logon user)

A: Access Allowed

CC: Create Child

LC: List Children

SW: Self Write

LO: List Object

CR: Control Access

RC: Read Control

SU: Service Logon User

Note: If there are no GPO’s in place, then another activity may have changed the default registry permissions. To work around this issue, perform the following steps:

1. On the computer that is out of tolerance, start Registry Editor.

2. Right-click the registry key HKEY_USERSS-1-5-20, and select Permissions…

3. If the NETWORK SERVICE is not present, click Add…

4. In Enter the object names to select type Network Service and then click Check Names and OK.

5. Select the NETWORK SERVICE and Grant Full Control and Read permissions.

6. Restart the computer.

7. After the restart, the system may require activation. Complete the activation.

This solution is applies to Windows 7 Professional, Windows Server 2008 R2 Datacenter, Windows 7 Enterprise, Windows Server 2008 R2 Enterprise, Windows 7 Ultimate, Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard.

Source: Microsoft Support