TomR laid this down on his screen :
In ,
Eagle typed:
TomR formulated the question :
In ,
Eagle typed:
wiped My HD and tried to load W7 ultimate, but the built-in modem
will not load. I then loaded w10 and tried to use My W7 activation
to activate W10, and was refused. W10 works, but get the activation
reminder on the desktop.

Any thoughts on working this issue?

If you have a valid W7 software and license key, I the trick is to
first just put the W7 on. Then do all of the automatic security
updates and within a week or so, you will get a notice that says you
can upgrade to W10. When you get that W10 upgrade notice, do the W10
upgrade from there.
Do not go online and download a W10 software or upgrade directly
since your W7 license key won't work for that. The built-in valid
W7 license key will only work for the W10 upgrade notice that you
get from Microsoft after you have had W7 installed for a while (a
week or so). With your W7 installed, the problem with the modem is
probably a
driver problem. I found a free driver updater software online that
checks for the correct drivers, but the free version only lets you
update up to two drivers per day. I can't remember the name of the
free program right now. Or, if you know the modem make and model you can
probably go to a
support website and download the correct driver.

If you post a reply back here in response to the above, I'll give
you the info for a very good newsgroup for computer questions like
the ones you have. It is a news.annexcafe.com newsgroup called
annexcafe.general.user2user .

Only problem with your solution is that the internal modem won't load,
so it's impossible to do all you wrote Tom. :/

I was assuming that since you are able to post here, you have access to the
Internet.

For the computer in question, does it only have a modem to access the
Internet, or does it also have a NIC card and/or WiFi capability?

Wireless wi-fi.

I don't think you can activate any Windows program without Internet access
since I think that Microsoft has to be able to "see" your computer to do the
activation so it can recognize the motherboard and other components as part
of the activation.

That was the problem with W7, the wi-fi ability wasn't loaded when I
installed My copy of W7 ultimate so no internet.

Maybe you could use whatever computer you are using to access the Internet to
post here and try to find the right driver for your modem and then copy it
via USB thumb drive to the problem computer.

Or, take the problem computer to a place that can access the Internet via NIC
card or WiFi or whatever. Or, beg, borrow, or steal a NIC card from another
computer or another person and put it in the problem computer.

I have 5 other outdated computers here including one I use as data
storage using scci drives.