~Toughbooktalk~

After many years my favourite W7 install turns out to be "not genuine". It is a W7 pro-N install. Has been online and steadily running and updating for damnifiknowhowmany years now. I inherited the system and never gave it a single thought. She has run virus protection from every one and never been flagged. An old gateway machine that I use for recovering files ect. CAN NOT find a place to get a 7 pro N key that I trust. It's going to be painful but will probably end up upgrading to a 64 bit pro install now. Sad because the pro N was really trimmed down. It was almost a CE version.

Windows 7 N editions, available for customers who live in countries that are part of the European Economic Area, Croatia, and Switzerland, have been designed to give you most of the features of Windows 7—with the addition of choice.

Windows 7 N editions come in five editions: Starter, Home Premium, Professional, Enterprise, and Ultimate. For detailed information about what each edition includes, see Which one is right for you?

The N editions of Windows 7 allow you to choose your own media player and software required to manage and play CDs, DVDs, and other digital media files. If you choose to use Windows Media Player 12, downloading it, along with related software, is free.

What's not included in N editions of Windows 7?

The N editions of Windows 7 have all the features that normally come with each individual Windows 7 edition, except for Windows Media Player 12 and related programs, such as Windows Media Center or Windows DVD Maker. You'll need to install a media player or other software to play or create audio CDs, digital media files, and video DVDs; organize content in a media library; create playlists; convert audio CDs to digital media files; view artist and title information of digital media files; view album art of music files; transfer music to personal music players; or record and play back TV broadcasts.

Where are the N editions of Windows 7 sold?

The N editions of Windows 7 are available in Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland.

Yes Shawn, my favourite search ninja. I am VERY aware of what I had and where it was available. I have been using this install as a tool for years. I have an original install iso here some where on file. HOWEVER the key is unavailable to me at this time.

From what I read the only difference in the "N" version is that it ships without Media Center.
Media Center download size is 130mb.
Win7 Pro 32bit should be very close to the same size and keys are readily available on the fleabay.

Well there were a few other things "removed" from the install. It's just going to bite knowing that it was a unique install and now it's junk. Kinda grew attached to that thing. It was named Junk-2.

Sent a PM, that should help you fix everything. If not, I will show you a few other options.

You can't re-auth the key with Microsoft?

Tried that. Turns out it wasn't a valid key. So am basically rebuilding the whole install from bottom up. Will be good in a few days.