A friend has asked me to take look at their laptop, I've tried to run a scan with Malwarebytes, and it gets to about 10 minutes into the scan (161 infected objects found at this point) and the laptop locks up, I have restarted the laptop and retried the scan, each time the same thing happens always on the same file. I'm currently scanning in safe mode and it has made it to 24 minutes and 176 infected objects but the scan has paused on a different file and the system is unresponsive although the mouse cursor is still movable. Now the easiest thing for me to do at this point is to just do a system re-install (from a recovery partition), now this wouldn't normally be a problem, except the windows licence sticker has worn away and you can no longer read the full product key, is there a way to find out the product key from within the OS? The laptop from HP and is running Vista Basic
That is why I love OEM's that puts the Windows sticker inside the battery compartment, this way, when the battery is in (which is most of the time at worst or all the time in), protects it. Yes you have to remove the battery to see the Windows product key.. but come on.. how many re-install you do; if you do a lot of them, then copy it down on a peace of paper or something.
You generally don't need the key when recovering from a recovery partition. Although I'd jellybean it as well. belarc also does the same thing & gives all the other product keys on the system
Thank you, Just gave it a go, worked nicely. Have to admit, I thought it was a silly place to put it when I found it on my dell, but know it makes perfect sense.
