Question : How do I activate a product key for Windows 7 professional on a pushed machine

I recently bought 20 Acer workstations.  As they were all set to have the 120gb drive partitioned into 3, I deleted the partitions and made it one whole drive then proceeded to install the Windows 7 pro OS and the rest of the programs I would need to run my business.  I then made an image of theat PC and pushed out to the other 19.   I left the activation part alone so that I would need to activate each one individually as they all had windows 7 pro purchased with each PC.   I am running into a windows activation issue where it will not activate by internet or phone.  I can not get a hold of any microsoft techs to help resolve this.  Do any of you know of a way to install the product keys that came with the particular PC's .

I also tried activating the original image and then pushing that one out but got the same results.

Please advise.  Thanks

Answer : How do I activate a product key for Windows 7 professional on a pushed machine

Yes, you can use SYSPREP after pushed the image, it's a little longer, but I does the trick.  Run SYSPREP, reboot, it should boot like a fresh install, asking for a valid key, computer name, etc.

Since my imaging software is Symantec Ghost, I use ghost walker on regular basis, which change the sid without the use of sysprep.