Rick Rogers said:
Hi,
There was a short "event" (Microsoft's term, not mine) when the WGA
servers went down, and systems that tried to validate against them
interpreted the inability to validate as being from an invalid license.
This caused a number of systems to display messages about being
non-genuine and requiring reactivation. The issue has been corrected.
--
Best of Luck,
Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
Windows help -
www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts
http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
A question: Did your father actually enter the new key when he installed
his new OS? Or did he continue to use the old key, which was supposed to be
transerred to you.
NOT so. You can activate your OS anytime you desire, so it is NOT "your
last day to activate". Of course, it will not function fully after day 30
until activated, but that can easily be remedied anytime you choose.
So don't get frightened. After all, this is not "rocket science" we're
talking about.
And STOP listening to all your ignorant friends, and READ Microsoft's
information about activation.
That's strange. Just a day ago, I read that after the server malfunction,
all activations supposedly defaulted to "valid", rather than "invalid".
But the OPs problem has nothing to do with the broken Activation servers.
They did the right thing when he attempted to activate a key which had
already been activated. They denied an activation, as they should have. He
should have immediately called the Activation Center, and spoken to the
tech, telling him/her how he obtained the OS. It would also have helped if
his father had been there to explain that he had transferred his retail
license to a second party, his son.
Donald McDaniel