inappropriate reactivation by microsoft/vista

[smithy]

Greetings,

Vista OEM ultimate owner with my new pc.

Believe it or not, things are going pretty ok (only pretty ok, still very
unstable).

Anyway I installed all the hardware and software and activated as
instructed.

Today I was offered the latest Sata nforce 4 drivers, so accepted and
installed it. Suddenly microsoft said I had new hardware (go figure) and to
re-activate my OEM version of Vista Ultimate.

This is very poor, nothing has changed, but yet am treated like I'm a
criminal to re-validate my purchased licence.

Can someone explain to me why this is happening, as if microsoft keep
offering updates (as appreciative as I am), I think having to reactivate it
on these basis is absurd.

While I'm at it, a friend of mine how also bought a PC from the same company
with same OS wants to know that if he reformats his hdd due to virus attack,
will he be penalised because of the repartitiion of the same hardware etc
etc?

smithy

 

[Alias]

Greetings,

Vista OEM ultimate owner with my new pc.

Believe it or not, things are going pretty ok (only pretty ok, still
very unstable).

Anyway I installed all the hardware and software and activated as
instructed.

Today I was offered the latest Sata nforce 4 drivers, so accepted and
installed it. Suddenly microsoft said I had new hardware (go figure)
and to re-activate my OEM version of Vista Ultimate.

This is very poor, nothing has changed, but yet am treated like I'm a
criminal to re-validate my purchased licence.

Can someone explain to me why this is happening, as if microsoft keep
offering updates (as appreciative as I am), I think having to reactivate
it on these basis is absurd.

While I'm at it, a friend of mine how also bought a PC from the same
company with same OS wants to know that if he reformats his hdd due to
virus attack, will he be penalised because of the repartitiion of the
same hardware etc etc?

smithy

And I thought activation was a hassle with XP ...

Alias

 

[Guest]

Greetings,

Vista OEM ultimate owner with my new pc.

Believe it or not, things are going pretty ok (only pretty ok, still very
unstable).

Anyway I installed all the hardware and software and activated as
instructed.

Today I was offered the latest Sata nforce 4 drivers, so accepted and
installed it. Suddenly microsoft said I had new hardware (go figure) and to
re-activate my OEM version of Vista Ultimate.

This is very poor, nothing has changed, but yet am treated like I'm a
criminal to re-validate my purchased licence.

Can someone explain to me why this is happening, as if microsoft keep
offering updates (as appreciative as I am), I think having to reactivate it
on these basis is absurd.

While I'm at it, a friend of mine how also bought a PC from the same company
with same OS wants to know that if he reformats his hdd due to virus attack,
will he be penalised because of the repartitiion of the same hardware etc
etc?

smithy

Aaaaah so that's it. I installed that a few days ago and it told me to
reactivate too, but the icon on the system tray rarely appears to tell me to
reactivate, and I keep missing it so I have no idea what phone number to ring
to get a valid license.

This is absurd is all fairness, being told to reactivate just before of a
driver update? And now i have no idea what to do or who to ring or anything!

 

[Guest]

VERY annoying!!!!! The phone services are down at weekends and today (sunday)
is my last day to activate.

HOWEVER - I have now reactivated my copy. When it asks for you to reactivate
you need to choose 'automated phone activation' You then type in your code
and then you get asked a load of questions. Just answer truthfully that you
have not changed your hardware and that this copy of Windows is only
installed on the one machine and you get a new code you type in and it
reactivates your copy

 

[Richard Urban]

This is a known problem and Microsoft has been made aware of the problem.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[john]

This is a known problem and Microsoft has been made aware of the problem.

This is a known problem and Microsoft created the problem. Why would they
need to be "made aware?"
--
=======================================
"There won't be -anything- we won't say to people to try and convince
them that our way is the way to go."
-- Bill Gates on Microsoft marketing
=======================================

 

[Richard Urban]

Bye John.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Guest]

Kiel,

Microsoft Activation Support on Sundays are open from I believe 6:00am
- 3:00pm pst or in other works 9:00am - 6:00pm est.

I tried calling them just now to double check they are open today on
Sunday. The best way to get the phone number for activation is one
simple command line:

slui 4

Type that into your start search. It will bring up the windows
activation wizard to the fourth option (phone activation). It will ask
you for your country, select us or canada or uk or wherever else you may
reside. Hit 'Next'. This will provide you with your installation id and
the phone number. Call the phone number, said 'Yes' to the first
prompt, enter your 40 digits.

You'll get connected to a rep, he'll ask you again for the first six
digits to confirm they received your numbers correctly. You'll tell him
if you bought it from a retail store and that you reinstalled/had a
hardware change. After that, your done.

Its really fairly fast easy and simple. Im not sure if it is
Microsofts fault that updating your drivers caused your motherboard's
hardware id to change to a hardware id that indicates a different
revision, right? Since to windows activation that makes it look like you
took out your old motherboard and put in a brand new motherboard
slightly newer.

Yes, it sucks and the driver should have been properly made before it
having been released on Windows Update maybe, but ms didn't make the
driver afaik? Hopefully your mobo company will in the future make
drivers that don't change your hardware id.

 

[will_s]

This is a known problem and Microsoft has been made aware of the problem.

Vista is what it is - until Microsoft says that it isn't