Windows Vista Activation, REALLY?!

roozor · 29 Nov 2007 at 19:43

Just installed sata raid chipset drivers on my vista install, rebooted and windows activation has popped up.

Bought this copy of vista x64 home oem in january.

Told me i can't activate again and windows will shut down in 3 days.

REALLY?! for christs sake.. :mad:

I know it's oem, but come on microsoft, i haven't changed any hardware!

bledd · 29 Nov 2007 at 19:51

just one of those things, call ms and explian, they'll sort it

Burnsy2023 · 29 Nov 2007 at 20:05

Just reactivate and all is well, like Bledd said, it's just one of those things.

Burnsy

adelburn · 29 Nov 2007 at 20:07

I had same prob about a year ago and had to phone microsoft due to the license being 1 time use.

I also reformatted again yesterday and windows activated straight away on the original license?

swinnie · 29 Nov 2007 at 20:37

I have found Vista wanting reactivating to almost any hardware change which I find annoying.

Mint_Sauce · 29 Nov 2007 at 21:05

Same here, I overclocked a touch and it demanded I go through the phoning up process. I must have activated it literally 10 times now :/

swinnie · 29 Nov 2007 at 21:07

Mint_Sauce said:
Same here, I overclocked a touch and it demanded I go through the phoning up process. I must have activated it literally 10 times now :/

I think it thought you had installed a new processor!

you could probably sneeze and it would want reactivating.

rscosworth · 29 Nov 2007 at 22:50

im forever reinstalling vista ultimate on various laptops (i change them every 2 months) and was having to call MS everytime. The last twice have activated themselves without need for a phone call, im not sure they can switch the details into some kind of power users list to stop you pestering them! not sure!

braveheart · 30 Nov 2007 at 13:37

one thing its the BIOS behaviour that happend to be mess up so lock BIOS as write protection so that wont mess up -- it happened when I used Xp Sp2 last time -- reinstalled XP as refreshed then next day it came up to ask me reactivationa and i typed correct COA then refused to let me through so contacted MS to get new one... think BIOS seem mess up -- after I locked up then it prefect stay all way -- Im now Vista Ulitamte x64 without hiccup so think you better lock BIOS as write protection.

Brian Stuart · 30 Nov 2007 at 17:08

braveheart said:
one thing its the BIOS behaviour that happend to be mess up so lock BIOS as write protection so that wont mess up -- it happened when I used Xp Sp2 last time -- reinstalled XP as refreshed then next day it came up to ask me reactivationa and i typed correct COA then refused to let me through so contacted MS to get new one... think BIOS seem mess up -- after I locked up then it prefect stay all way -- Im now Vista Ulitamte x64 without hiccup so think you better lock BIOS as write protection.

Burnsy2023 · 30 Nov 2007 at 17:13

adelburn said:
I had same prob about a year ago and had to phone microsoft due to the license being 1 time use.

One time use?

Burnsy

braveheart · 30 Nov 2007 at 19:42

Brian Stuart said:

that would
I mean if you dont lock the BIOS as write protection that would mess up by change the software or anything go back square one -- like my Gigabyte GA-M59SLI-S5 as I selected as "Enable" instead of "Auto" - "Enable" mean it lock BIOS as write protection that mean it wont mess up also you cant flash update until you unlock first then update new BIOS (you can find this into BIOS set up screen by press Del or F1 very quickly when boot up PC)

if you still confuse then have look into BIOS screen see if you have Enable/Auto into BIOS setup screen - to lock or leave as unlock ( default is unlock mean you can flash update -- I used Windows @BIOS for Gigabyte update, once Ive done then I reboot then enter BIOS and then Enable that lock as write protection so wont update new BIOS until next time)

Datamonkey · 30 Nov 2007 at 19:55

Braveheart,

havent heard of that one before, but what you say does ring true in some respects.
For example i normally disable the onboard fire-wire and serial ports.

But after flashing my bios last time and restoring defaults it re-enables them. When i got into windows it then prompted me to activate again. I can only assume because i was a muppet and forgot to disable them before booting back into the os. Vista see's them as hardware changes as all a sudden it has approx 4/5 new devices insatlled. (fdd controller, serial, firewire and others)