Robbbert wrote on Today, 01:21:

I've got an evaluation version build 7100 of Windows 7, running on a Compaq dc7600. It runs pretty well considering it's a chass […]
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I've got an evaluation version build 7100 of Windows 7, running on a Compaq dc7600. It runs pretty well considering it's a chassis meant for XP.

Problems:
- Even though it was officially from Microsoft as an evaluation machine, if I try to activate it, Microsoft says it's blocked.
- After 2 hours it will reboot
- The screen saver is sometimes black, but mostly it's there ok.
- Can't install any Microsoft updates, patches, or products because it isn't activated. So no SP1, no IE11 or Edge.
- The last Firefox that works is version 88. It's happy to upgrade itself, but the result is not usable. Also applies to clones; none of them work either.

However, products from other suppliers will happily install and run. Chrome (last version for Win7) works. Opera 95 works. All my other standard installs for win7 work.

My question is: is there a way to get Firefox 115 to run? The problem with any after 88 is the text in the menus and onscreen is reduced to one dot per character, rendering it useless.

Also, if it's not illegal to ask, is there a way to activate this machine?

7100 is the RC of Win7... I recall back then you can request free evaluation keys but I doubt they can be used now. It was set to expire at a certain date IIRC, and that date is a bit later than RTM release so some people could kind of make a "Frankenbuild" of RTM back then by replacing the license info with that of RC, allowing them to keep using the evaluation key until the RC expired.

And while RC may not have much differences to RTM (that would be 7600), you certainly cannot install any update/extension released post-RTM, as they expect that particular build number. Updates/extensions released for a given Service Pack level follow the same manner, as the build number since Vista also contains indications of the Service Pack installed (that is, 7601 represents SP1, and software requiring it will check for that).

Not sure what system-level changes may have been added with Win7 SP1. You can always try modifying the program binary or the DLLs involved to hack the version checking mechanisms, but things will only work if there isn't any broken (exists but non-working) or unimplemented (shown as red in Dependency Walker) API.