Please HELP!!Problem with activation of Vista Ultimate

[Guest]

Hi. I am having a problem with Vista. Its saying that missed my 3 day grace
activation period and am now unable to activate vista. I bought a genuine
copy of vista and installed a few months ago. Now I am being told the
something has changed with my hardware (all I have changed was my keyboard so
I don't think that was the problem) and I need to activate it again. When I
tried to retype my code I was told that my code was already in use and that
it was not genuine.

What should/can I do??

 

[Andrew McLaren]

Hi. I am having a problem with Vista. Its saying that missed my 3 day
grace
activation period and am now unable to activate vista. I bought a genuine

Something has invalidated your existing activation. If you can't activate
automatically over the Internet, you need to ring Microsoft and get an
activation code. The error message you saw should have given you the phone
number for your region (it varies, according to country). It's pretty
straightforward, you just ring the number, ask the support person for a new
activation code, and they give it to you, then you plug it in to Windows -
should only take about 3 minutes.

The algorithm to detect "hardware changes" is pretty complex and not public,
so it can be hard to say what will provoke a re-activation. If it isn't a
genuine hardware change (keyboard? I dunno) it may be a virus, which
deliberatly deletes your activation information. So make sure your
anti-virus signatures are up to date and run a full scan of your system.

Hope this helps a bit,
Andrew

 

[Guest]

Wicked fly and Andrew. Thanks a million. That worked perfectly..Done and
dusted in 5 mins.. I was getting worried.. being a student I thought I'd have
to fork out for a new key.

 

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Should not really be a problem..On the activation tab on the desktop,
go to the activate by phone option, select your country, and telephone
microsoft on that number..I am sure if you explain what happened, they
will help you. Good luck

No, it IS a problem - why is this happening in the first place?

Product Activation is a user-hostile payload that is tolerated
reluctantly only on the basis that it will "never" nbother legitimate
users. Here, it's bothering legitimate users, and you say "just phone
up and beg", and that's not a problem?

Ethics limbo dancing. How low can you go?

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