Win7 Enterprise clients reporting “Not Genuine”, 0xc004f200, when they’ve been working for years

[Karlston]

Blame KB 971033, which shouldn’t even get installed on KMS-controlled machines.

 

For some unknown reason, earlier today, Microsoft suddenly started pushing the eight-month-old KB 971033 — an “update for Windows Activation Technologies” that was released on April 17.

 

I’m seeing cries of pain all over the internet. For example, torontojc reports on the Reddit sysadmin forum:

Woke up this morning to find a few thousand Windows 7 VDI machines reporting that Windows 7 wasn’t genuine. After much troubleshooting we found that KB971033 (should not have been installed in a KMS environment in the first place) was installed on these machines. Until today having this KB installed hasn’t been an issue, it appears a change to how Microsoft’s activation servers respond to a standard KMS key being sent to them may be to blame.

Removing the update, deleting the KMS cache and activation data from the PC’s and re-activating against KMS resolved the issue.

Most of the responses recommend uninstalling the patch then reaming out the systems, but Nick on Microsoft’s TechNet forum says:

I found that the only steps I required were as follows. I didn’t need to uninstall the KB971033 patch in my case, even though it was installed. Nor did I need to delete the tokens.dat or cache.dat.

net stop sppsvc
del %windir%\system32\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-0.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 /ah
del %windir%\system32\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-1.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 /ah
net start sppsvc
slmgr /ipk 33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH
slmgr /ato

We are currently trying to decide whether to roll out this workaround to all our clients, or to wait a day or two to see if Microsoft issue a patch for the problem. It has been widely reported on Reddit/r/sysadmin too.

If you hit the problem, let us know how you solved it.

 

Source: Win7 Enterprise clients reporting “Not Genuine”, 0xc004f200, when they’ve been working for years (AskWoody - Woody Leonhard)

 

Poster's note: The above fix’s “33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH” looks suspiciously like a Windows 7 activation code. If so, it's best that anyone else trying this fix use their own activation code.

 

it's just an install Key for KMS machines and useful for troublesome installs that ask for a key.

[MrZeb]

The key is a KMS Client Key for the Windows 7 Enterprise Edition basically it instructs the client to activate using a KMS server.

 

For Windows 7 Pro the key is different FJ82H-XT6CR-J8D7P-XQJJ2-GPDD4 all keys can be found on the following Microsoft page

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/kmsclientkeys

 

 

[Karlston]

KB971033 causing activation issues on Windows 7 Enterprise PCs

The year 2019 begins like the year 2018 ended for administrators and users running Windows: troublesome.

 

Microsoft's cumulative updates for Windows 7 released on the January 2019 Patch Day caused networking issues under some configurations, and the whole Windows 10 version 1809 fiasco is still fresh as well.

 

Reports are coming in that the update KB971033 is causing activation issues on Windows 7 Enterprise PCs. The update, which Microsoft released in April 2018, updates the Activation Technologies of Windows 7 Home Basic, Home Premium, Professional, and Ultimate.

 

Notice what is not included? Right: Enterprise! Even though the update should not be installed on KMS-controlled devices, it got on (some) of them apparently.

 

 

Microsoft acknowledged the issue in KB4480960, the summary for the January 9, 2019 update for Windows 7.

After installing this update, some users are reporting the KMS Activation error, “Not Genuine”, 0xc004f200 on Windows 7 devices.

A system administrator opened a thread on Reddit reporting that thousands of Windows 7 VDI machines reported that they were not genuine this morning and that he found out after a lengthy troubleshooting session that the update KB971033 was the cause.

 

The admin concluded that the activation issue had something to do with a change in how Microsoft Activation servers respond to standard KMS keys being sent to them.

 

The admin resolved the issue by uninstalling the update from Windows, deleting the KMS cache and activation data from affected PCs, and re-activating against KMS.

 

Woody Leonhard found a workaround published on Microsoft's Technet forum for the issue. Nick Bryant published the following steps to address the issue.

1. net stop sppsvc
2. del %windir%\system32\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-0.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 /ah
3. del %windir%\system32\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-1.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 /ah
4. net start sppsvc
5. slmgr /ipk 33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH
6. slmgr /ato

A more detailed solution asked users to remove the update KB971033 that causes the issue as well. I have attached it just in case.

1. Uninstall KB971033. If the machine doesn’t have KB971033 installed please follow the below steps.
2. Reboot
3. Run Command Prompt as administrator manually or via a PowerShell script from https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4032981/powershell-script-for-windows-7-non-genuine-issue-is-available/.
4. Type: net stop sppsvc
5. Type: del %windir%\system32\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-0.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 /ah
6. Type: del %windir%\system32\7B296FB0-376B-497e-B012-9C450E1B7327-5P-1.C7483456-A289-439d-8115-601632D005A0 /ah
7. Type: del %windir%\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\tokens.dat
8. Type: del %windir%\ServiceProfiles\NetworkService\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\SoftwareProtectionPlatform\cache\cache.dat
9. Type: net start sppsvc
10. Type: slmgr /ipk 33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH
11. Note: The 33PXH-7Y6KF-2VJC9-XBBR8-HVTHH key is for Windows 7 Enterprise. If the OS is different, find the corresponding KMS client key from https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/get-started/kmsclientkeys and use it instead.

Source: KB971033 causing activation issues on Windows 7 Enterprise PCs (gHacks - Martin Brinkmann)