Hi purple_mentats, Welcome to the community, It seems the installation was not done properly. I would advise you to back up the data and reformat the hard drive and perform a clean installation of windows 7. When done the option of activation would never pop up.  Note: Dell systems are OEM versions and never require activation. Thanks and regards, DELL- Amit L Certified Dell Social Media and Communities Professional
Hello I was having issues with my laptop and out of frustration I decided to start over with a fresh install. I reinstalled Windows 7 fine, used the product key located on the bottom of my laptop without a problem. A few days later after installing all of my drivers and updating Windows, I get a message that my copy of Windows isn't genuine.  Any ideas?   
This copy of windows is not genuine, DELL Laptop, Inspiron N7110