New Windows 7 installation

[alanworland]

I have two SSD drives for my PC, one has an upgraded Windows 7 to 10 professional running and seems to work well, this is connected to the internet. But as I prefer 7, I installed a new unopened installation of 7 professional on the other SSD, which is not on the net.
I noticed tonight while using my new 7 installation I had 2 days left to register the product code. I entered the number upon installation but I guess it has a 'timer' running for online registration.
I temporarily connected with Microsoft and entered my number to be told it has been blocked? I then used the automated telephone registration facility which didn't work either!
Does this mean my new install of 7 will cease to function?
I bought the sealed, unopened Microsoft copy a few years ago but now wonder if it was stolen?

Alan

[ppppenguin]

AFAIK, you can still instal and register W7. It would be nice if W7 was made free to install now that tehre are no updates but hell will freeze over first. I don't think any of the old versions of Windows have been made available to install without a key or registration. For those of us who sometimes run older versions of Windows in a virtual machine this would be very handy.

[alanworland]

Thanks for your comment - it would be great if it was free as it is now unsupported.
Storage thing happened today as it was about to expire - I entered the registration code of my working copy (upgraded to 10) into my about to expire copy - it was accepted and is now fully working!?
How can that be? Two different copies (although both are professional 64bit) and one activates the other?
Not complaining but I thought Microsoft would have prevented this?
Anyway all up and running!

Alan

[ppppenguin]

The activation codes for W7 and W10 aren't specific to the installation medium. They are related to the PC's hardware. So if you modify too much of your PC then W7 will complain and need to be re-activated.

I'm in the process of moving to Linux for everyday PC usage. I've got some XP virtual machines that don't cause me any trouble with activation for when I have to do Windows. Chances are that I'll effectively abandon W7. I've never used W10 and hope I never will.