This copy of windows must be activated

[Guest]

The computer I was working on had a virus and it affected the network and
network card. During the repair, I got a message that I had 3 days to
activate XP. The counter went from 3 to 1 to 0 in 2 days and now I have the
computer fixed but can’t get in. It tells me that windows needs to be
activated and logs me out. It’s an endless loop and I can’t even get into
Safe Mode. I only had the original OEM disk so I went to Best Buy and bought
one of the last XP Home Upgrades they had and did a repair load and although
I entered the new 25 digit auth code, when it was finished and booted, I got
the same error. I would hate to do a fresh reload tonight, but it looks like
the only alternative.

Can anyone help?

Thanks,

 

[Maincat]

The computer I was working on had a virus and it affected the network and
network card. During the repair, I got a message that I had 3 days to
activate XP. The counter went from 3 to 1 to 0 in 2 days and now I have
the
computer fixed but can't get in. It tells me that windows needs to be
activated and logs me out. It's an endless loop and I can't even get into
Safe Mode. I only had the original OEM disk so I went to Best Buy and
bought
one of the last XP Home Upgrades they had and did a repair load and
although
I entered the new 25 digit auth code, when it was finished and booted, I
got
the same error. I would hate to do a fresh reload tonight, but it looks
like
the only alternative.

Can anyone help?

Thanks,

You probably know that you can actvate by telephone. Since I don' know
which country you are in I can't give yo the number.

If you do a reinstall of the OS, it may pay you to do a deletion of the
partition and then recreate it.

Steve

 

[Patrick Keenan]

You probably know that you can actvate by telephone. Since I don' know
which country you are in I can't give yo the number.

If you do a reinstall of the OS, it may pay you to do a deletion of the
partition and then recreate it.

Steve

It seems that in some cases you can't activate by telephone, because there
is no way to enter the code you'd be given.

I ran into this myself on the weekend. You get a message that activation
has failed and is necessary before you can log in, you click OK to try to
activate, but that fails, so you get a message that activation has failed
and is necessary before you can log in, so you repeat the process.

You're never given an alternate-contact screen; the machine is for all
purposes inaccessible. I had to just give up, stop wasting time, wipe
the drive and start over.

-pk

 

[Guest]

Likewise had similar problem on a Fujitsu Scenic today, had to reload
Windows, only to be told that the key (which was on the box, and was accepted
by Setup, and which was unquestionably genuine) was not valid for activation.

Somewhat uncharacteristically, I lost my cool in front of the customer this
time. This didn't do my reputation or professional-image as a Microsoft
engineer any good at all.

However, I think it's fair to say that like everyone else I'm getting to the
end of my patience with this charade. Microsoft might see a need to counter
piracy, but supplying nonworking licences that waste engineers' time and
damage their reputation is not going to solve anything. It is also in itself
a fraudulent act, no different in principle from printing a dud banknote.

That, and the fact that virtually all new computers are plastered with
advertising, popups, trialware, Nortonware and AOLware, make the job of the
Windows PC-installer a thankless one in the extreme.

Heading back from this job, my thoughts were very much on Vista and its
even-tighter WGA.. and whether I want to support a product that's going to
give even more of this kind of grief... and on the notion that maybe I ought
to spend a bit more time on learning Linux. Who knows, it might be the
watershed.

I've never liked the Unix style of working too much, but just to see a copy
of Debian or SuSe go onto a box with no activation, no ads, no popups -and
best of all no preinstalled junk- is so immensely gratifying that I can live
with its somewhat clunky GUI and arcane commandline syntax.