Win 7 Pro repair problem

[#1]

About this time last year, I got hold of a Dell copy of Win 7 Proffessional 64 bit SP1... and installed it on a re-formatted HDD... added in the Dell drivers for my laptop, and it has been working well eversince.

Recently been "pratting about" with various downloaded progs to see which one works best, for having live TV from a USB DVB-T dongle... one "did" work,... but has stopped working , hence the trials of anything and everything that i can find.

I reckon, that with all the installs, and uninstalls, that I have done, probably has messed up some of the Windows core apps or whatever, and that I need to "repair" the copy of windows on my machine.

Checking  on the System... it says

Windows 7 Professional 64 bit SP1 is installed.

with a confirmation that Windows has been activated... and a Product ID number alongside..

However when I inserted and ran the DVD disc, that I installed it from... after doing the "language" page, and clicking NEXT... it comes up with a message saying that the disc is not correct or compatible, or something like that and I should use the correct disc...

Anyone got any suggestions... ( apart from a re-format and re-install ) 

[#2]

The product ID isn't necessarily  the license key alternatively it is looking at the motherboard number and if it isn't Dell it won't work

I wonder if the license check has been tightened up

[#3]

Agreed,.... strange, how it is a Dell machine...    ( Inspiron 5558 )... and it is a Dell disc... and it has installed it... and it has registered it as a "good copy"...

[#4]

---

@shutter wrote:

or something like 

---

Perhaps the exact error message may help in troubleshooting?

[#5]

Well, I`ll copy that down the next time I boot up with the disc in the drive. and post it on here...

[#6]

@Browni here is the message

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

System Recovery Options

X   This version of system recovery options is not compatible with the version of windows  you are trying to repair.

Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of windows.

                                                                                             [ OK ]

____________________________________________________________________________________________

[#7]

As you run Windows 10 it steadily updates itself - you can delay updates but you can't prevent them entirely. This means that eventually the Windows 10 that you're running is nothing like the original installation. There was a major change (July '16? - not sure) to the 'anniversary edition' and so on.

If you need to run the Windows recovery good stuff such as sfc and dism etc. you need a copy of Windows compatible with the one you're currently running (which is likely of course the latest) so that any damaged files can be replaced with the correct versions. The easiest thing is just to download the latest iso from Micro$ and do the recovery from that.

[#8]

Was a system recovery partition (hidden) created when you installed the OS? If not, maybe the disc is trying to look for that partition and failing, then tells you to use a dedicated recovery disc (which is different to the system install disc).

[#9]

Does it even need repairing in this case? It sounded like a problem with a specific program.

[#10]

@quelquod Do you know what you are talking about ?  cos I don`t...   perhaps you should read the title of the thread...   and then review your post

[#11]

@RPMozleyI dont recall doing any partition work on the install... it may have done it automatically.. but I wouldn`t know about that ! ! ..

@ejs  Well, you could be right...but I don`t know which one it would have been, out of a possible 10 to 15 progs downloaded and uninstalled. !...  that`s why I reckoned that somehing had been corrupted in Windows system, and thought the "repair" would have sorted that out.. 

On previous window installs, I often used the "repair" facilty, and never had any problems with it..  whether it actually DID repair anything, again, I can`t remember,....but it pro bably did "!

[#12]

Is rolling the system back to a known restore point an option for you, to a time prior to the testing of these applications?

[#13]

Do you have any other hard disks plugged-in to the machine, like a backup drive?

[#14]

@Anonymous  Possibly... !    not sure how far back the restore points go....

@ReedRichards  No other drives installed/attached...

Working on a fresh install on another HDD,  ...... Just in case the "repair" "roll back" doesn`t fix it...

( kind of belt and braces...... Also got Linux Mint 17 on another HDD... so not going to be "without "  ! ! 

[#15]

@shutter - Have a look at this, there's a lot of information here. Scroll down to the middle of the document to get to the part about restoration.