Periodic reactivation required in Vista?

[Dave R.]

While reading the review at
http://activewin.com/reviews/software/operating-sys/vista/ I saw that
according to this review, Vista will require periodic reactivation -
Enterprise versions every 180 days, and retail versions every 60.

Can anyone confirm that this is the case and provide details, especially
how this works with OEM versions? Do they fall under the 60 day retail
reactivation cycle or some other cycle? What happens if a reactivation
fails because there is no internet connection? What happens if it
appears there is an internet connection but the reactivation is blocked
because of a firewall?

I'm really hoping that this is not the case since a reasonable portion
of the machines our company sells are standalone business systems that
do not connect to the internet - ever - and some that have very
stringent outbound firewall rules for security reasons. It would be
quite an inconvenience for the operators of these systems to have to
call Microsoft every couple of months to reactivate over the phone...

Regards,

Dave

 

[Mike Brannigan]

While reading the review at
http://activewin.com/reviews/software/operating-sys/vista/ I saw
that according to this review, Vista will require periodic
reactivation - Enterprise versions every 180 days, and retail
versions every 60.

Can anyone confirm that this is the case and provide details,
especially how this works with OEM versions? Do they fall under the
60 day retail reactivation cycle or some other cycle? What happens
if a reactivation fails because there is no internet connection?
What happens if it appears there is an internet connection but the
reactivation is blocked because of a firewall?

I'm really hoping that this is not the case since a reasonable
portion of the machines our company sells are standalone business
systems that do not connect to the internet - ever - and some that
have very stringent outbound firewall rules for security reasons.
It would be quite an inconvenience for the operators of these
systems to have to call Microsoft every couple of months to
reactivate over the phone...

Regards,

Dave

An extremely poorly written article containing factual and technical
errors.
The 180 reactivation is for VL users of Enterprise Edition only using
the internal Key Management Services.

If you are interested in the facts about Volume Licensing of Windows
Vista see.
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources/vol/default.mspx
www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/plan/faq.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/plan/volact1.mspx

 

[MICHAEL]

"while retail licenses will require a 60 day activation cycle. What do I think of this?"

The quote is from the activewin.com review- it is absolutely, positively,
without a doubt- WRONG!

I am quite amazed they actually said that.

Yes, VL users of Enterprise or Business will need to
reactivate within 180 days. Plus an additional 30 days
if needed. Or, they will need a MAK key and then activate
once against a Microsoft server.

-Michael

 

[Dave R.]

An extremely poorly written article containing factual and technical
errors.
The 180 reactivation is for VL users of Enterprise Edition only using
the internal Key Management Services.

If you are interested in the facts about Volume Licensing of Windows
Vista see.
http://www.microsoft.com/licensing/resources/vol/default.mspx
www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/plan/faq.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/plan/volact1.mspx

Thanks for the information - it didn't seem reasonable that MS would do
that for retail licenses, but I've seen MS do things I thought were
unreasonable before, so...

Best Regards,

Dave

 

[Dave R.]

"while retail licenses will require a 60 day activation cycle. What do
I think of this?"

The quote is from the activewin.com review- it is absolutely,
positively,
without a doubt- WRONG!

I am quite amazed they actually said that.

Yes, VL users of Enterprise or Business will need to
reactivate within 180 days. Plus an additional 30 days
if needed. Or, they will need a MAK key and then activate
once against a Microsoft server.

Thanks for the information - although this reinforces our need to do
extensive testing before we commit to Vista for our products, and I
think we'll specifically test for this type of situation.

Best Regards,

Dave