reactivation when nothing changed

[Guest]

My PC froze and then wouldn't reboot. So, following SOP, I removed everything
except for one bank of RAM. Rebooted. POST. Turned off. Added another bank
of RAM. Rebooted. POST. Turned off. Added third bank of RAM. Rebooted, POST.
Turned off. I kept doing that until all the hardware was reinstalled into the
EXACT SAME SLOTS, PORTS, AND CONNECTERS. Nothing changed!
I got the reactivation BS. When I run the reactivation BScript, I'm told the
product number is incorrect. Funny. I only have the one copy of XP Pro so how
the blazes could the number be wrong!!!!!!

Suggestion will be appreciated, except the certain MVP whose name is the
same as a restaurant and thinks Microsoft's activation program is just dandy.

 

[Guest]

Update. I ran one those Product key finders. Guess what? The key it found
matches EXACTLY what I entered into the activation applet. Fascinating, huh?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

My PC froze and then wouldn't reboot. So, following SOP, I removed
everything
except for one bank of RAM. Rebooted. POST. Turned off. Added another bank
of RAM. Rebooted. POST. Turned off. Added third bank of RAM. Rebooted,
POST.
Turned off. I kept doing that until all the hardware was reinstalled into
the
EXACT SAME SLOTS, PORTS, AND CONNECTERS. Nothing changed!
I got the reactivation BS. When I run the reactivation BScript, I'm told
the
product number is incorrect. Funny. I only have the one copy of XP Pro so
how
the blazes could the number be wrong!!!!!!

Suggestion will be appreciated, except the certain MVP whose name is the
same as a restaurant and thinks Microsoft's activation program is just
dandy.

So.. Let me get this straight in my mind.

You had a problem where your PC froze. So you thought "Hey - could be bad
memory.. or some other hardware issue.." and proceeded to troubleshoot
that. You ended up basically "reseating" all of your hardware and since
everything booted each time - you assumed you had fixed the issue. I offer
and alternative outlook.... it is entirely possible the issue still exists
and is now demonstrating its existence in a different manner than before.

As for "how the number could be wrong" - well, if you are only trying to
activate over the Internet and have not tried by telephone - then it is
possible that the number you have (and that worked before and that is
VISIBLE to you) is getting scrambled in the internet transfer - resulting in
a false message. Might i suggest making the toll-free call and activating
over the phone?

If that too - does not work - then it could be that more is scrambled on
that drive than meets the eye - and that the number you get to enter on the
phone call (which - yes - is painfully large) is being produced by a
corrupted process based off the correct key you can see.

Also - if it has been less than 120 days since you last activated -
telephone is the way to go anyway. =)

 

[Vanguard]

My PC froze and then wouldn't reboot. So, following SOP, I removed
everything
except for one bank of RAM. Rebooted. POST. Turned off. Added another bank
of RAM. Rebooted. POST. Turned off. Added third bank of RAM. Rebooted,
POST.
Turned off. I kept doing that until all the hardware was reinstalled into
the
EXACT SAME SLOTS, PORTS, AND CONNECTERS. Nothing changed!

Oh, c'mon, even you realize that you changed the hardware as many times as
you changed it. Every change was a change. You removed lots at once.
Change #1: You added a stick of memory. Change #2: You added another stick
of memory. Changes 3 to N: You keep adding more stuff (presumably one at a
time) so, for N more changes in hardware, you made N more changes (yeah,
that statement is circular because a change is a change). So eventually you
hit a threshold, like 10 changes, which triggered the activation event.

Nothing changed? Hah! LOTS changed. Doesn't matter that you put back in
what was there before. You made changes. You changed your system from
loaded to barebones. Then you made subsequent changes, one at a time, as
you added "new" hardware to that barebones system (what, you think Windows
will somehow magically know the memory stick you had before is the same one
you added later?).

I got the reactivation BS. When I run the reactivation BScript, I'm told
the
product number is incorrect. Funny. I only have the one copy of XP Pro so
how
the blazes could the number be wrong!!!!!!

Did YOU do the install of Windows? Or did it come as some pre-built that
you relied on someone else to fab? If someone else, could be they didn't
use SysPrep properly, or simply copied an image onto the drive, resulting in
the same license getting proliferated on every host they prebuild. Even if
they gave you an install CD (and a product key for it), could be you are
supposed to use the product key on the sticker that they were supposed to
affix to your computer (but if they prepped the computer wrong then maybe
even that product key won't work). You'll have to call whomever built the
computer to get help from them since the version of Windows that came with
that computer is an OEM version and Microsoft has no responsibility to
support that version (you got it cheap because it did NOT include support
from Microsoft; it is an OEM version so you have to go back to the OEM for
help).

If the product activation fails, as you indicate, it should give you a
telephone number to call. So explain why you didn't bother to call.

Suggestion will be appreciated, except the certain MVP whose name is the
same as a restaurant and thinks Microsoft's activation program is just
dandy.

Yeah, that statement was clear as mud. Since a restaurant can be whatever
name the proprietor wants, and could be their name, their daughter's name
(like Wendy's), someone else's name, or not even a person's name (you think
there is someone walking around named Napa Auto Parts that started that auto
parts chain?), your statement is just whiny fluff.

For sure.

 

[Vanguard]

Update. I ran one those Product key finders. Guess what? The key it found
matches EXACTLY what I entered into the activation applet. Fascinating,
huh?

WHICH product key finder? It may report BOTH the product key (what you
enter to activate) AND the product *code* (which is generated *from* the
product key). Could be you were trying to enter the product code instead of
the product key. Could be you are entering the wrong characters for the
product key (i.e., what it says is not what you enter).

Also, perhaps when you were told the "product number is incorrect" really
was that you have one of the known pirated licenses or the license that got
used or recorded by however Windows was installed is not a legitimate string
for Microsoft's product keys.

Looks like you'll have to call them after all like as activation wizard
tells you. If no telephone number is disclosed to where you can call
Microsoft on getting the product activated, go to their home page and use
the Contact Us link to navigate to the support page for the product where it
should list numbers for you to call.

 

[Guest]

You know, Vanguard, it's [----] like you who give support / community forms a
bad name.
First off, IF Microsoft's hardware database for each PC were coded
correctly, it would realize that every piece of hardware had been reseated
into the exact same position as before. That's called fall over. Secondly,
with the way Microsoft has its reactivation currently coded, you can need to
reactivate after just swpping CD-Drives, which by the way, has happened to
me. Not put a new one in. I mean just switching their positions on the cable.
Thirdly, if Microsoft were in the least bit interested in its customers and
users, it would simply compare the license and user info to a database first,
then see if the mobo were the same. Most of the people I know have changed
CPUs, hard drives, optical drives, memory and goodness knows what else
several times on the SAME box.
Anyway, I installed XP into my own PC after I had to replace a fried hard
drive. That happens occasionally with lightning strikes, car wrecks, and
winter static. Microsoft's paranoia over reactivation is second only to those
in Washington.

 

[Vanguard]

You know, Vanguard, it's [----] like you who give support / community
forms a
bad name.
First off, IF Microsoft's hardware database for each PC were coded
correctly, it would realize that every piece of hardware had been reseated
into the exact same position as before.

Your ignorance of hardware is showing. Put a pencil in your pencil cup.
Have someone record what is in the pencil cup. Now take out the pencil and
have that someone record again what is in the pencil cup. Now put the
pencil back in. Yeah, the recorder can see there is now a pencil in the cup
but has not a clue that it is the SAME pencil as it could be a different
pencil that just looks the same.

So how huge do you want this database to be? For you, it should keep track
of everything (by device type since it obviously cannot tell that the device
is the same one as before) ever installed or removed. That means there
would be a lot of useless information in the database but which no
uniqueness of device can be recorded. The database knows what you changed
from before, keeps tracks of what changes were made (since some devices are
weighted heavier than others, like the CPU), but doesn't keep track of
everything that ever happened on that host.

That's called fall over. Secondly,
with the way Microsoft has its reactivation currently coded, you can need
to
reactivate after just swpping CD-Drives, which by the way, has happened to
me. Not put a new one in. I mean just switching their positions on the
cable.

Again, how does anyone (other than you) know that the device is the same one
as before? What if the device broke and you installed a completely
different and new one? You think Microsoft should record everything that
was ever installed and allow you to remove and add the same devices without
tracking those changes? All it would take to get around activation would be
for a company to install every piece of hardware they have in their
inventory to build up a huge but bogus database of once-installed devices,
remove it all, give you the prebuilt computer, and then you would never have
to reactivate no matter how many changes you made thereafter. Well, then
there would be no point to activation because it could easily be thwarted.
What would be the point of passwords if all of them every used or could
possibly be used were accepted?

Thirdly, if Microsoft were in the least bit interested in its customers
and
users, it would simply compare the license and user info to a database
first,
then see if the mobo were the same.

But you could also keep changing the mobo with the same brand and model
although it was a NEW mobo and was thus a change (i.e., it wasn't simply you
removing it and putting it back in, especially since you would've needed
another mobo in the interim). I really doubt users want their hardware so
uniquely identified that it could immediately and always be traced back to
them, and have to pay for that uniqueness and loss of privacy and
interchangeability. I'm sure Microsoft would LOVE if all hardware were
uniquely identified because they could absolutely lock a license to a
particular host. As it stands now, activation is based on a very loose and
non-unique description of the hardware. That's the nature of the hardware
platform on which you choose to run an operating system.

Most of the people I know have changed
CPUs, hard drives, optical drives, memory and goodness knows what else
several times on the SAME box.
Anyway, I installed XP into my own PC after I had to replace a fried hard
drive. That happens occasionally with lightning strikes, car wrecks, and
winter static. Microsoft's paranoia over reactivation is second only to
those
in Washington.

Activation isn't to make your life easier. It is to protect Microsoft's
assets at a minimum of nuisance to their customers. Microsoft doesn't care
about making it easier for you; otherwise, they would simply toss activation
altogether (maybe by removing it in a service pack). If the 5 minutes to
reactivate or to make a phone call are so infuriating to you, I have to
wonder how long your keyboard or computer lasts when you bang it from having
to insert a CD *every* time you want to play a game that uses protection.
The little bit of nuisance is just that: a little bit. Sorry, but any
manufacturer of any product has the right to protect themself against
thieves and it is NOT their legal responsibility about incurring some almost
insignificant nuisance to an individual user. The mosquito bites so you
swat. Ranting on and on about having to swat that mosquito makes you look
foolish, or having to swat another the next day or a month later for another
one. With the time dispersal between activations, it's not like you are
being swarmed by a cloud of mosquitos. You over react to activation.

I see users bitching about activation as somehow consuming such a major
portion of their time when in fact they are lying and they spend far more
time wasted on non-functional tweaking of their OS, like the desktop
background, personalized or scrolling menus, window sizes, and so on. They
wail about maybe once, twice, or even a dozen times over time having to
reactivate Windows and yet they still hunt around or swap CDs to play games.
Or they waste days and weeks on trying to tweak their anti-spam solution
because they are so oversensitive that they cannot manage to delete 2 spams
a day. Users waste so much time on trivial stuff and then complain when
having to perform one more action requiring little effort and very little
time. Stop wasting your time watching fake reality television or any
non-educational programming, or detach from your cell phone umbilical cord,
and you'll have oodles of free time of which only a miniscule fraction would
be consumed with [re]activation.

Computers and general-purpose operating systems are NOT about making life
easier. They are about maintaining or increasing your level of frustration.
You want to blame Microsoft for activation simpy because they are an
identifiable entity. You can't focus on the real culprits on WHY Microsoft
had to waste their time and resources to add activation (you think
activation was free for Microsoft?). Why not leave your house door unlocked
so anyone having an emergency could use your phone? Because of the nasty
others that have forced you to lock your doors. You have the right to
protect your property. So does Microsoft.

Get over it. It's Windows. You'll be having far bigger problems than
activation.

 

[Guest]

Yours is the ignorance. The db would be in a compressed file on the local
machine. It would take all of 10 - 20K . MS could hide it with all the other
hidden files WIndows lands on your HD. IT would save time, bandwidth, and
aggravation.
--
I know enuff to be dangerous.

You know, Vanguard, it's [----] like you who give support / community
forms a
bad name.
First off, IF Microsoft's hardware database for each PC were coded
correctly, it would realize that every piece of hardware had been reseated
into the exact same position as before.

Your ignorance of hardware is showing. Put a pencil in your pencil cup.
Have someone record what is in the pencil cup. Now take out the pencil and
have that someone record again what is in the pencil cup. Now put the
pencil back in. Yeah, the recorder can see there is now a pencil in the cup
but has not a clue that it is the SAME pencil as it could be a different
pencil that just looks the same.

So how huge do you want this database to be? For you, it should keep track
of everything (by device type since it obviously cannot tell that the device
is the same one as before) ever installed or removed. That means there
would be a lot of useless information in the database but which no
uniqueness of device can be recorded. The database knows what you changed
from before, keeps tracks of what changes were made (since some devices are
weighted heavier than others, like the CPU), but doesn't keep track of
everything that ever happened on that host.

That's called fall over. Secondly,
with the way Microsoft has its reactivation currently coded, you can need
to
reactivate after just swpping CD-Drives, which by the way, has happened to
me. Not put a new one in. I mean just switching their positions on the
cable.

Again, how does anyone (other than you) know that the device is the same one
as before? What if the device broke and you installed a completely
different and new one? You think Microsoft should record everything that
was ever installed and allow you to remove and add the same devices without
tracking those changes? All it would take to get around activation would be
for a company to install every piece of hardware they have in their
inventory to build up a huge but bogus database of once-installed devices,
remove it all, give you the prebuilt computer, and then you would never have
to reactivate no matter how many changes you made thereafter. Well, then
there would be no point to activation because it could easily be thwarted.
What would be the point of passwords if all of them every used or could
possibly be used were accepted?

Thirdly, if Microsoft were in the least bit interested in its customers
and
users, it would simply compare the license and user info to a database
first,
then see if the mobo were the same.

But you could also keep changing the mobo with the same brand and model
although it was a NEW mobo and was thus a change (i.e., it wasn't simply you
removing it and putting it back in, especially since you would've needed
another mobo in the interim). I really doubt users want their hardware so
uniquely identified that it could immediately and always be traced back to
them, and have to pay for that uniqueness and loss of privacy and
interchangeability. I'm sure Microsoft would LOVE if all hardware were
uniquely identified because they could absolutely lock a license to a
particular host. As it stands now, activation is based on a very loose and
non-unique description of the hardware. That's the nature of the hardware
platform on which you choose to run an operating system.

Most of the people I know have changed
CPUs, hard drives, optical drives, memory and goodness knows what else
several times on the SAME box.
Anyway, I installed XP into my own PC after I had to replace a fried hard
drive. That happens occasionally with lightning strikes, car wrecks, and
winter static. Microsoft's paranoia over reactivation is second only to
those
in Washington.

Activation isn't to make your life easier. It is to protect Microsoft's
assets at a minimum of nuisance to their customers. Microsoft doesn't care
about making it easier for you; otherwise, they would simply toss activation
altogether (maybe by removing it in a service pack). If the 5 minutes to
reactivate or to make a phone call are so infuriating to you, I have to
wonder how long your keyboard or computer lasts when you bang it from having
to insert a CD *every* time you want to play a game that uses protection.
The little bit of nuisance is just that: a little bit. Sorry, but any
manufacturer of any product has the right to protect themself against
thieves and it is NOT their legal responsibility about incurring some almost
insignificant nuisance to an individual user. The mosquito bites so you
swat. Ranting on and on about having to swat that mosquito makes you look
foolish, or having to swat another the next day or a month later for another
one. With the time dispersal between activations, it's not like you are
being swarmed by a cloud of mosquitos. You over react to activation.

I see users bitching about activation as somehow consuming such a major
portion of their time when in fact they are lying and they spend far more
time wasted on non-functional tweaking of their OS, like the desktop
background, personalized or scrolling menus, window sizes, and so on. They
wail about maybe once, twice, or even a dozen times over time having to
reactivate Windows and yet they still hunt around or swap CDs to play games.
Or they waste days and weeks on trying to tweak their anti-spam solution
because they are so oversensitive that they cannot manage to delete 2 spams
a day. Users waste so much time on trivial stuff and then complain when
having to perform one more action requiring little effort and very little
time. Stop wasting your time watching fake reality television or any
non-educational programming, or detach from your cell phone umbilical cord,
and you'll have oodles of free time of which only a miniscule fraction would
be consumed with [re]activation.

Computers and general-purpose operating systems are NOT about making life
easier. They are about maintaining or increasing your level of frustration.
You want to blame Microsoft for activation simpy because they are an
identifiable entity. You can't focus on the real culprits on WHY Microsoft
had to waste their time and resources to add activation (you think
activation was free for Microsoft?). Why not leave your house door unlocked
so anyone having an emergency could use your phone? Because of the nasty
others that have forced you to lock your doors. You have the right to
protect your property. So does Microsoft.

Get over it. It's Windows. You'll be having far bigger problems than
activation.

 

[Alias]

Yours is the ignorance. The db would be in a compressed file on the local
machine. It would take all of 10 - 20K . MS could hide it with all the other
hidden files WIndows lands on your HD. IT would save time, bandwidth, and
aggravation.

Or they could remove activation all together, being as it doesn't stop
piracy one iota and recuperate some respect from their paying customers.

Alias

 

[Asher_N]

Yours is the ignorance. The db would be in a compressed file on the
local machine. It would take all of 10 - 20K . MS could hide it with
all the other hidden files WIndows lands on your HD. IT would save
time, bandwidth, and aggravation.

The database is a Hash number. It does not really keep track of the
hardware. It certainly doesn't keep track of location, serial numbers et
al. If you shut down and move your NIC from one slot to the other, the Hash
will remain constant. If you remove, reboot, there is a new hash. Add the
card again, there is a new hash yest again. You mand N+1 changes.

 

[jt3]

I'll add my $.02. WPA is a PIA. Without question. For a long time, I
merely read all the complaints about WPA, and thought that Kurttrail's
diatribes, though generally not unfounded, were a little extreme.

Then it happened to me. An essentially bare-bones machine, 1.5 yrs old,
always been a problem, finally got the mbd mfgr to RMA the mobo. Note that
this board did not change--it was the same motherboard, all they did was
change all the electrolytics.

Hook it back up, everything boots, no obvious memory problem now, except an
indication of a video driver problem. After a cycle of about five
uninstall/reinstalls of differing versions of drivers, all of a sudden, I am
informed that I have changed the hardware so extensively since the original
installation that it must be reactivated, within 3 days, not the normal
after more than 120 days.

Now, there is NO difference in any of the hardware on this machine, save the
new electrolytics, from the day it was originally activated.

Now tell me Kurt is off track!

Joe

 

[Alias]

I'll add my $.02. WPA is a PIA. Without question. For a long time, I
merely read all the complaints about WPA, and thought that Kurttrail's
diatribes, though generally not unfounded, were a little extreme.

Then it happened to me. An essentially bare-bones machine, 1.5 yrs old,
always been a problem, finally got the mbd mfgr to RMA the mobo. Note that
this board did not change--it was the same motherboard, all they did was
change all the electrolytics.

Hook it back up, everything boots, no obvious memory problem now, except an
indication of a video driver problem. After a cycle of about five
uninstall/reinstalls of differing versions of drivers, all of a sudden, I am
informed that I have changed the hardware so extensively since the original
installation that it must be reactivated, within 3 days, not the normal
after more than 120 days.

Now, there is NO difference in any of the hardware on this machine, save the
new electrolytics, from the day it was originally activated.

Now tell me Kurt is off track!

Joe

Did it activate online or did you have to make a call?

Alias

 

[jt3]

Didn't try. I have a SATA drive I want to install with the OS on that, &
that probably would require reactivation, so I'm not going to try until I've
done that. I wasn't going to do it until I was certain I had all the bugs
ironed out, but MS has sort of forced my hand here.
Anyhow, it seems easiest, given that there's no data or programs to worry
about reinstalling, to just do a clean install to the SATA. So, no, I can't
really relate the finish to the story--it just fouled up my approach, is
all.

Joe