Vista Activation
Over the past couple weeks I’ve had to “reactivate” two copies of Vista; now I did update the video cards and the optical drive (which is likely what triggered it), but interestingly enough, these are the two oldest copies of Vista (the first two computers installed with it).
It’s not difficult…
You try the online activation, it fails.
You call the automated telephone activation system, it fails.
You request a transfer to a Microsoft activation specialist, you read them the codes, answer a couple simple questions, and they give you the activation code which you type in and then you’ve activated.
Hopefully my activation is good for another twenty months (or more)!
NOTE: While I’m sure that changing the hardware triggered this, I suspect that Microsoft has implemented a more rigorous inspection of the computer fingerprint to defeat bulk copies of Vista by questionable computer manufactures.
Related posts:
- Revise Windows XP “Home” Directory Structure I gave this “tool” to a few of my friends a couple weeks ago and many of them thought it was kewl (a few even...
- Microsoft Vista System Update Readiness Tool If you’ve had problems updating your Microsoft® Windows™ Vista system to SP2 you may want to download the System Update Readiness Tool and run it...
- Windows XP, You Just Can’t Kill It! Yesterday Microsoft made some significant changes to the order policies for Windows XP; while they did not extend the January 31, 2009 cut-off date for...
- Windows Vista Service Pack 1 For your convenience, here are direct links to Windows Vista Service Pack 1 Windows Vista Service Pack 1 64 bit Windows Vista Service Pack 1...
- Vista; To Be Or Not To Be… An administrator that is. For about six months now I’ve tried to follow Microsoft’s advice and have my user account have administrative privileges. It sounded...
- Customizing Windows XP and Vista Installations Two tools you should know about are nLite (for XP/2003) and vLite (for Vista/2008), they allow you to customize the installation of Windows as well...
- Vista Sidebar Gadgets There’s a ton of sidebar gadgets for Vista (just open up the gallery with “add gadgets” and select the “Get more gadgets online” link at...
- Netbook I purchased a MSI Wind U100 a couple weeks ago for an “on-the-go” computer. At $299 plus $99 for a 2.5″ SATA2 500GB Seagate hard drive...
- Windows 7 – 32-bit or 64-bit? So you’ve got your new copy of Microsoft® Windows™ 7 and you’re ready to install it on your computer… but you have to decide whether...
- Windows Mail (Vista) Microsoft has several generations and families of email programs. Outlook is targeted for the corporate market, and until recently the only viable choice for Windows...
