Activation of Vista

[Guest]

Right now I'm a bit peed off. I bought Vista & ended up having to upgrade my
ram capacity. I thought since my hard drive was nearly 4 yrs old I'd get a
new one of those at the same time. Obviously I had to re-install the Vista
OS. Now it's telling me that the product ID is already in use & I need
another to activate.

Now if I choose to format my pc at some point in the future, I'm basically
gonna have probs re-activating this product aren't I?????

 

[Robert Firth]

Just call Microsoft at the activation number it provides and they will get
it activated for you.

Changing major hardware quickly can trigger this. You tried to activate
twice with two different hard drives in rapid successtion. It takes time and
hardware changes into account. However, as long has you have removed it from
the previous computer (you stopped using the previous copy), then you are
fine. Just call them up, it only takes a minute and a lot of typing.

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/* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
* Robert Firth *
* Windows Vista x86 RTM *
* http://www.WinVistaInfo.org *
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * */

 

[Jim]

Now if I choose to format my pc at some point in the
future, I'm basically

gonna have probs re-activating this product aren't I?????

Not at all. Simply call the nice Bangledeshians, explain the situation, and
be done in less than five minutes.

 

[Bill]

I call them all the time, when I have to reinstall XP on a
customer's computer. They are usually quite friendly, but there is
definitely a language barrier. You may have to ask them several times to
repeat the numbers that you need to fill in the blanks. Dont give up in
frustration, just keep asking them until you know that you have the
correct numbers. They may pause unexpectedly and you will hear silence on
the line, but they are still there. I think that sometimes their English
is so bad that they are afraid that they will get fired, if you keep
asking them for the same numbers. It is probably a tension filled job,
since many customers still have to talk to a rep, after they have
attempted to enter all those numbers on their phone's keypad, or called
out the numbers several times, only to have the automated voice ask over
and over what those last digits were. You call always scream
representative, representative, until you get a human operator, so you
only have to do the numbers one time. The canned voice says that this
procedure only takes 6 minutes..lol...more like 10 or 12. Right after you
call them and install the numbers, you can then update your windows, and
the update will check again to make sure you are legal. You will be
checked numerous times after that, whenever you want to install a Media
Player or IE update, or whatever. We shure want to make shure that we are
legal and stay legal, and this is a real Microsoft Advantage.

You don't have to make very many changes to your computer in order to have
the privilege to call in and speak with an outstanding citizen from
another country. Sometimes just a wireless adapter will set it off. But
remember, it keeps you honest and you like honesty, dont you? You get to
meet new people in very foreign places. We can be proud that we are
Americans and are helping all those underprivileged people improve their
standard of living. It can only make us feel like we are doing out part
to spread the wealth. Who knows, the phone that we are talking to the
person on, might be the only phone in that entire town.

 

[Richard]

You can activate by phone, but I think the activation drops off their
servers after a few months.
How often do you format your computers anyway?

 

[Lakesidezx]

It didn't with XP. Everytime I wanted to do a reformat I had to call them
for activation, and that was aproximately every 6 months. Fun thing was one
night the gentleman on the other end told me he couldnt help me because they
were running "maintenance" and that I should call them back in about 4
hours. I guess I shouldnt have waited so long to activate it.

Activation doesn't annoy my friends because many of them will install an OS
and never do anything to their computers ever again, and it will sit for 5+
years regardless how polluted the system gets so they never activate but
once, but for me that was every 6 months with XP.