James.

You can use this little portable tool ABR to pull the OEM activation file and the license key and it then reactivates the new OS.
ABR
http://www.directedge.us/

Obversely it's not going to work for labon210 as he has already done the reinstall, but may be helpful for someone else.

wow man that's EXCELLENT! that is an amazing find man thanks for looking out! I glad to see you know what im talking about and the importance of such a utility in regards to windows OEM licencing. Why waste a COA key right? lol

Everyone always talks about pulling the license key, but rarely do they get the activation file which is just as important. Otherwise you will most likely be phoning Microsoft to reactivate the OS.

I often do clean reinstalls on new pc to remove all the crapware and ABR just makes the job so easy.

jack80

just verified the tool with the windows 7 beta version. Works like a charm

I had a great opportunity to test it out tonight as i mangled the activation of an oem when removing the password (log story). So the cert and key were removed before i could back it up! Fortunately its an Acer laptop and I know that all acers use the exact same cert and licence key. So i dug into my home made repository and used the tool to insert them.

Normally I would just use SLMGR to do the process but this just simplified the whole process. Thanks man, very useful.

Great to hear it worked for you. That's what the podnutz community is all about. Sharing those good finds. Haha. I just wish I found it sooner.
I've only used it on win7. 32bit 64 bit both work faultlessly.

I believe it would be legit for me to post my repository of certs and keys since they will strictly only work for OEM computers installed with the corresponding BIOs SLIC 2.1, 2.0, 1.0 and OEMID prerequisite that needs to be in place by that specific OEM manufacturer in order for it to work. I have such a vast amount now that I haven't needed to make a backup for almost a year now. In fact I may make an entire thread on it for all to understand since its kinda a brain twister at first glance

p.s. do you know of a simplified tool; just for educational purposes; that will backup the slic and oemid to file? [this is the back end stuff i will leave out of the for mentioned post lol]