"If it is Not a genuine copy of Windows, it is understandable that you are unable to activate it. Having said that, I wold be interested to know how originally you got it working without going through an activation process."
As implied/described in my post, one can register it and it seems ok for months until MS suddenly decides to dump on you. Then you get the black screen and claim it (suddenly) isn't genuine. Getting back to the original seller (in my case of the OS) is the way I "fixed" my issue. By the way the OS still works even with the claim and black "wallpaper" background.