[German]Brief question to the readers who still use Windows 7 SP1 and force installation of security updates with ESU Bypass v11. Do you seeing that the Windows 7 activation is getting lost since May 23, 2022? I got a couple of reports from German blog readers, complaining about that.
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The user suddenly gets a watermark on the bottom right of the desktop: "Windows 7 Build 7601. The authenticity of this copy of Windows has not yet been confirmed." (or Windows is not genuine). This means that the activation has been lost and the user is shown a black screen. Windows 7 SP1 will also restricts some feature like changing the background color of the desktop.
Around the same time as the described error, two event IDs appears: 8208 and 8209. The first one describes an "error capturing an authentic ticket", the second one says that "an authenticity status is set to not authentic".
ESU Bypass v11 is a workaround to allow Windows 7 SP1 to continue to install the security updates provided by Microsoft for companies.
After publishing my German blog post, I reveied confirmation from several blog readers, while others wrote, that Windows 7 SP1 is still activated. Currently it's not clear, whether this lost activations are caused by "blocked volume license keys, sold by third market vendors", by technical issues caused by a Windows 7 update (we have had such situations in the past, or caused, because Microsoft removes activations, if files manipulated by ESU Bypassed are found. Is there anyone else who has had similar observations?
i've installed the may 2022 kb5014012 rollup on a win7 pro system with latest esu bypass, rebooted and the win7 system remained activated. ditto for installing the kb5014987 out-of-band update as well as the win7 system was not deactivated.
for event IDs 8208 & 8209 messages, see this from ghacks.net:
https://www.ghacks.net/2019/01/11/microsoft-explains-the-windows-7-kms-activation-issue/
affected Win7 users with those 8208 & 8209 messages should check if KB971033 is installed or not.
follow instructions from that blog to find & remove/uninstall KB971033 (and hide/block this update if WU offers it again) & re-validate/re-activate Win7