Vista Reactivation?

[Guest]

A message popped up telling me there was a hardware change and i had to
reactivate the product key. When i tried to reactivate, a message came up
telling me the product key was already in use and i needed to purchase
another one.
I had made no hardware changes, nor did i install any new programs that can
be counted as hardware changes.
How do i reactivate my vista without buying a new product key?

 

[Andrew McLaren]

A message popped up telling me there was a hardware change and i had to
reactivate the product key. When i tried to reactivate, a message came up
telling me the product key was already in use and i needed to purchase
another one.

The message should have given you a Microsoft phone number to ring. There
are different numbers for different countries. You just ring the number and
ask for an activation code. They give you a number, you plug it in to
Windows, and you're activated. Takes about 3 minutes.

The algorithm in Vista which detects hardware changes is pretty complex and
a bit unpredictable at times. It can interpret extremely subtle changes,
such as a change in your BIOS, as though you had installed Vista on a new
machine. It's wrong, of course. But just get a new activation code over the
phone. Hopefully the algorithm will be a bit smarter in the next Service
Pack.

Hope it helps
Andrew

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

I don't have any idea why the reaction would occur if you have not made any
hardware changes?

This can be solved easily though. See the following website for a
description of the issue and how to fix it.

Product Key Already In Use When Attempting To Activate Windows Vista:
http://vistasupport.mvps.org/product_key_already_in_use.htm