Computer has been asking me to "Activate Windows" for the past 6 years.
 

I have had this PC for the past 6ish years, and ever since day one, every few hours, about 3-4 times a day, whatever program or application i'm in will close and prompt me with a completely blue screen telling me to activate windows and only gives me the option of going to my PC Settings before I can X out of the window. I'm sick of it, I've dealt with this for 6 years. Countless games I play have had certain situations ruined because of sudden game closes due to this. I am perfectly fine with the current version of Windows that I have, Windows 8. How do I disable this from appearing ever again?

It's not asking you to upgrade - it's asking you to register the copy of windows your machine is running (this is a user-license requirement). One of three things has happened:

1. You bought the machine new and failed to follow the instructions to activate the operating system on first use

2. You bought the machine "pre-owned" and it has an illegal copy of Windows on it which is already registered elsewhere

3. Your system has become corrupted and *thinks* the activation hasn't occured.

If it's (1) just go to settings and activate the software (it's free).

If it's (2) then you'll have to buy a legal copy of Windows and install/activate it

If it's (3) you need to contact microsoft's on-line help facilities and they will assist you in diagnosing/fixing the problem

Actually there is a (4) - if you have changed the disk, the motherboard or the processor of the machine it may need you to re-activate it by talking to microsoft. This is a facility to stop people copying an activated installation onto multiple machines to avoid paying for the software. I don't think this will be the case because you said this had been happening "since day 1".

Does that help?

PDR

And this has been going on for 6 years !!!??? Seriously ?

It wouldn't last six hours before something drastic happened to it.

If it's 6+ years old it's quite likely the HD's on its last legs and may have some corruption. High time to get some new hardware and upgrade the OS to Linux Mint.

Or you can wait for them to call you. They call most weeks these days. They're very helpful. Until - after 25 minutes - you tell them that you have a Mac....

Nope, a Lenovo T440. So they start in on their spiel until I tell them it's running Linux. :E

The license code for the operating system is going to be on a sticker on the bottom of your computer. You should be able to activate it online, with a smartphone, or with a phone call by using the license code on that sticker. If you follow the prompts for the activate windows popups that keep bothering you, it'll lead you to a website or phone number to call. It takes maybe 10-15 minutes, tops, even if you have to talk to a real person to get it done.