The Dancing Penguins
By AnjaP
@Rollo1 (16676)
Boston, Massachusetts
February 11, 2016 5:55am CST
They look like they are dancing. I have three penguins who appear to be dancing as my wallpaper.
This doesn't sound interesting or important, I know. But it is. Because my desktop is not black.
A while back, weeks ago, I switched out my hard drive from a broken computer into this one, and Windows 7 went ballistic. For the last several weeks (or is it months now?) The desktop has been black, and a perpetual scolding appeared in the lower right hand corner "This copy of Windows is not genuine" - when, of course, it is genuine. Windows just objected to being moved to strange hardware. It didn't let me reactivate with the registration code, so after a while, I learned to live with the incessant pop-ups telling me that I needed to activate Windows and that I was possibly the victim of pirated software, etc.
Last night, when I shut Windows down, it downloaded 15 updates. Funny how they want to keep my "not genuine" copy of Windows up-to-date all the time. Well, I don't know what was in those updates, but this morning, a miracle occurred. The desktop was not black. It was a color - a nasty green color, but a color nonetheless. And the warnings and scoldings have all disappeared. I am once again an accepted member of the Windows family.
And so, my desktop wallpaper this morning is of penguins doing the happy dance.
What's on your wallpaper?
22 people like this
22 responses
@Poppylicious (11134)
• United Kingdom
11 Feb 16
Laptop, plastic toy doll faces. Tablet, a Kurt Vonnegut quote with the image of the earth. Desktop, just a swirly pattern. Desktop at work, a scene from Alice in Wonderland. Phone, a photo of my Qyzen Qat. Phew.
2 people like this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
11 Feb 16
The validity of your Windows copy would depend on whether it was pre installed on the computer or was a retail copy. A retail copy can be uninstalled and installed on any other machine, although a pre installed copy would be OEM.
An OEM version of Windows carries different conditions and is licensed for that specific computer only.
My desktop image is a Linux Village as shown here.
1 person likes this
@Asylum (47893)
• Manchester, England
11 Feb 16
@Rollo1 That definitely sounds like an OEM copy, which is intended for the original machine only. If you simply changed a piece of hardware in the computer it would reactivate fine, but it is detecting a vast change of motherboard and components, which is where the issue originates.
I suspect that even though the desktop wallpaper is active, the copy is still not activated.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16676)
• Boston, Massachusetts
11 Feb 16
My brother bought it and is of the opinion it was a one-time, one-machine installation, and so didn't take kindly to being in a different machine even though it wasn't a second installation as it was already on the hard drive. But whatever the problem was, it seems to have resolved itself as a result of those updates. I may never allow another update - just in case.
1 person likes this
@Rollo1 (16676)
• Boston, Massachusetts
11 Feb 16
@Asylum Ever since the switch, I have had a little message in the lower right of my screen, telling me that my copy is not genuine and constant alerts throughout the day that pop-up at intervals and tell me to activate my copy. Those are all gone now. And I even rebooted and it is all okay still, so I am hoping this is a permanent okay and not something fleeting. Maybe they made a mistake, but it was in my favor.
1 person likes this
@JESSY3236 (22199)
• United States
11 Feb 16
I have the Twilight saga wallpaper.
1 person likes this
@JESSY3236 (22199)
• United States
12 Feb 16
@Rollo1 I know. It amazes me too and that I am going to be 36 in two weeks.
@biikiki (197)
• Nyeri, Kenya
11 Feb 16
Am working towards that hoping by 2018 I will be breaking ground
@Rollo1 (16676)
• Boston, Massachusetts
11 Feb 16
I am wondering if it tried to do the automatic Windows 10 upgrade and couldn't because my computer is too old, so it gave up and just fixed Win 7. I am glad I didn't get adopted into the mandatory Win 10 family, where MS & Gates obviously have some features that are so important, they don't even want to charge you for them. If that doesn't worry you, I don't know what would.
1 person likes this
@nottoooldtowrite (2715)
• Philippines
11 Feb 16
I just use my cellphone and my wallpaper is dark gray with chalk drawings. My laptop at work has a wallpaper about the bank. And my laptop at home, which I have not been using, is just black.
1 person likes this
@GardenGerty (169406)
• United States
23 Feb 16
Just the blue HP background. I am familiar with that picture of penguins, though and they make me smile.
@allknowing (153544)
• India
12 Feb 16
I have disabled auto update for my windows 7 - just as well. I am satisfied with whatever I already have. Those updates take eons to upload, I use my own image off and on for my desk top wall paper.
@Sheilamarie78 (2586)
• Canada
15 Feb 16
Very cute image -- those dancing penguins! I have a picture of my son, his wife, and two daughters on my screen.
@Jessicalynnt (50523)
• Centralia, Missouri
12 Feb 16
I often use my own photos as backgrounds, one's in colors that don't hurt my eyes
