Activation Grwace Period and Buying a Key

Hello,
I thought I had a valid Win7 Home Premium key, but I guess I was wrong. (I have a lot of computers, and with many upgrades, downgrades, hard drive wipes, new installs it is hard to keep track of it all.)

Now the netbook I installed Win7 on says I have 2 days left to get a valid key. I only installed this yesterday, how can it be only 3 days from the initial install? (Google searches show 30 days as the norm.)

Anyway, I want to buy a Win7 Home Premium Key, so I can enter it and keep all of the work I have put into this thing. (About 150 updates took the better part of a day, plus all the software I put on before I realized Windows wouldn't activate.)

Microsoft is only selling Win8, and I am leery of the cheap Win7 offers I see online. Plus, I really just want a Reg Key so I can use what I have already setup, not risk having to reinstall if I get sent a new DVD and find out for some reason the key that comes with it doesn't work with what I have installed?

So where can I buy a cheap (but legal) valid key? And why did I get 3 days instead of 30?

Thanks,
Matt

 

You could try eBay. It's where I just got my Vista Ultimate DVD with COA/Product Key.

Interesting about the 3 day grace period. When I was experimenting with Vista to see which one I was going to stick with SP1 had the 30 day grace period. But when I installed SP2, the grace period got shortened to 15 days. :confused