On Jan 12, 3:59*am, wrote:
I bought this computer a month ago. Then I learned that W7 would not
run my very old copy of autocad, visual basic, and most important my
CNC control software(Camsoft).

I managed to completely hose W7 trying to get XP running on the same
box. So, I went nuclear:reformated, installed XP, then W7 using the
COA sticker on the side of this box (emachine from Best Buy).

All was well until just a few minutes ago. The screen went black and I
got "This copy of windows is not genuine". I was able to put in a new
background.

Is this box about to die? What should I do?

Karl

I think you've run into the OEM vs. retail license issue. If you used
a retail install disk, it probably won't activate using the emachines'
serial, the reverse is true, also. Win7 and Vista OEM versions are
tied to the box, you can't use a retail install and an OEM serial.
You'd need emachines' install/recovery media for that machine and
probably the recovery partition on the hard drive. If you changed out
the hard drive or blew away the recovery partition, you are SOL, you'd
need a retail Win7 install disk plus a valid retail serial. Usually
the recovery disk is an extra-cost item and retailers don't have
them. People are treating the low-cost machines as disposables,
junking them if they require more fiddling than they know how to give.

Things have changed since the Win 98 days. Also, those recovery
partitions can make setting up dual-booting a lot of fun, not
recommended unless you go to full retail licenses all the way across
and start with a completely blank hard drive or drives. Much better
is a Win7 install plus virtual boxes for the old stuff, if you've got
enough CPU and memory to run such and your old app software doesn't
want to talk to specific hardware. See virtualbox.org for a non-MS
free solution.

Stan