Activation-How do I stop the insanity?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Mark Smith
  • Start date Start date
Oh I see, so you admit that there could be a problem with these devices and
the OS when installing. Now you are speaking out of both sides of your
mouth. You say my story sounded incredible, but right here you say you tell
people not to have the devices plugged in.
Click to expand...

When you are installing an OS, it is wise to disconnect most external
devices to speed up installation; otherwise, installation will try
finding the right drivers and sometimes fails if the device is new.
BELKIN is a classic example whose devices have not passed MS
compatibility tests but we still install them AFTER the OS is up and
running.
And you are wrong anyway. You most certainly should have the devices plugged
up so XP can go ahead and install them. It is easier and faster. And what
the hell do you think happens when you plug in the device? The OS tries to
install it anyway.
Click to expand...

It is not easier and faster as you say. I currently support about 300
PCs for the university and take it from me that it is faster and easier
to connect after the OS is running.
Man, I am not wasting anymore time on you. I think people can see you for
what you are. A fruit loop.
Click to expand...

As you wish. Just for interest sake what does a fruit loop means? WE
don't have that word in the UK. Is it something bad to be labelled?
 
Mark said:
No, you are misrepresenting my story to convince any one who will listen to
your ramblings that I am a liar. Actually, right after the sentence about
the USB connection, I stated "Before that I switched HDD's around and put in
a new cd drive."

And nowhere did I say the camera caused the activation.I said that is why I
rebooted. Get it straight. But the pop up had said "hardware change" so I
sent out another post asking if anyone else had this happen when they
plugged in a USB device. This was the first time in years of using USB
devices this has ever happened to me. I am sure it was specific to this
camera.





Oh I see, so you admit that there could be a problem with these devices and
the OS when installing. Now you are speaking out of both sides of your
mouth. You say my story sounded incredible, but right here you say you tell
people not to have the devices plugged in.

And you are wrong anyway. You most certainly should have the devices plugged
up so XP can go ahead and install them. It is easier and faster. And what
the hell do you think happens when you plug in the device? The OS tries to
install it anyway.

Man, I am not wasting anymore time on you. I think people can see you for
what you are. A fruit loop.
Click to expand...

Actually, if you clean install XP SP1, followed by SP 2, then updates,
then motherboard drivers, video card, audio card drivers, then programs,
and *then* devices like printers, cameras, etc., you're much better off.
Works for me every time anyway. What you did, however, was different and
the sum total of what you changed probably triggered it. What I am
surprised at is you couldn't activate online without having to put any
numbers in. Every time I have had to activate due to hardware change, I
click on the bubble, it does its thing, and I'm activated, no numbers
involved.

Alias
 
Oh, and if he had a cracked OS, not a genuine one, he would never have
had to activate. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.
Click to expand...


Done it. Cracked OS would probably not work on his system considering
he has PnP requiring re-activation! This says it all!
 
Mark said:
I immediately followed up my post with the correct information. Why would I
do that if I were lying? Why would I correct myself? You would not even have
known this if I had not told you. Think about it Professor.
Click to expand...

You are not lying. You are just economic with the truth! I don't blame
you.
BTW, my wife has the cybershots connected to the laptop computer right now
as we speak. But I am probably lying about this because I have nothing
better to do.
Click to expand...

Right now you are quite busy arguing with me so you do have something
to do. Again, I don't think you are lying about what your wife is doing
right now. Perhaps it is her hobby and she must be better at it! Why
are you introducing her in our arguments? She is a completely innocent
person and I don't want her to get involved.

Now you are back with cybershot then? What happened to that Mercury
S-550v?

The game is on. Good night.
Click to expand...


good night and have sweet dreams (not nightmares!).
 
ANONYMOUS said:
Alias wrote:





Done it. Cracked OS would probably not work on his system considering
he has PnP requiring re-activation! This says it all!
Click to expand...

Horsepucky.

Alias
 
Alias said:
Horsepucky.
Click to expand...


It would be so helpful to us in the UK if you guys can translate non
standard american terms for us or provide links where we can learn from.

I don't know what Horsepucky means. I don't expect you to be rude for
trivial matter such as this so I assume it is just a normal american
slang for something.

Best regards,
 
Mark,
It sounds like your key got messed up somehow.
I usually does it during the install of windows xp if it messes up.

I know it has happen with me and had to do another reinstall.



Greg Ro
 
Mark Smith wrote:

And you are wrong anyway. You most certainly should have the devices
plugged up so XP can go ahead and install them. It is easier and
faster. And what the hell do you think happens when you plug in the
device? The OS tries to install it anyway.
Click to expand...

You should not have USB devices plugged in when installing XP. It may cause
the install to delay or even hang while it tries to find drivers. If they
are mass storage devices and formatted XP may end up on a partition other
than C:. It is always best to install with internal devices only and add
external devices later.

Kerry
 
<<<......you turned to ranting.
BTW, the time you took with only your first post would have been well spent
by just reactivating your operating system. You have spent well over ten
times that amount of time now!
Thanks for the recap.

You are right that I am ranting now. I am frustrated, especially because I
know I have a new video card coming and a 1gig of ram coming. The MS tech
said when I install that I am going to have activate again.

You are wrong about the USB not needed in my original post. I have never
seen a pop up like that before, so it was relevant.

And I did reactivate. I had no choice. The tech said I had no choice, even
though there was a tab on the activation screen that said I could continue
later. I had asked if I could wait because I knew I had new hardware coming.

I hope you noticed from all this that I have not complained about XP at all.
It is just the activation, and because I just learned from the tech that I
am going to have to get a new number every time I activate from now on.

And before when all I had to do was click three times, I had no complaint
about the activation process.
 
GregRo said:
It sounds like your key got messed up somehow.
I usually does it during the install of windows xp if it messes up.

I know it has happen with me and had to do another reinstall.
Click to expand...

Thanks, that was my next plan. To try and reformat and reinstall. But I
still have to enter the same product number (off the back of my legitimate
multi-folder that XP came in). So want MS still know that it is me calling
again? The tech said no matter what I would have to get a new activation
code each time. Is that right?

When my video card gets here Friday, I will know soon enough, because that
is when I will be reformatting.
 
I know that it seems to suck, but you just got a bad tech. A popup on your
screen will tell you exactly how many days you have to activate or
reactivate. Believe what your computer tells you, not some person from a
third world country.

I change hardware much more than others also. I have had to reactivate about
4-5 times over the years because of this. My situation is NOT the norm.
Many, many people buy a computer and used it until it dies, without even
adding one additional program or piece of hardware. They don't know that
they can. They replace what may go bad by sending the computer back to the
manufacturer. What they usually get is an exact replacement part.

Also, their computer may have, in fact, been activated by the manufacturer
or need no activation because of the way the manufacturer installs the
operating system on their computers. The customer/user does not even know
that the process exists.

You and I are different. I have learned to live with it and I am certain
that you can also. At most, it is a phone call of about 5 minutes.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!
 
You are right about the mass storage part. I accidentally reformatted a back
up drive because I got it confused with the internal. I learned the hard way
to have those unplugged. But the way I recall the post, he listed printers
and some other major hardware.

I definitely would not unplug my external dial up modem. It has been my
experience that devices bought or made pre-XP release cause no problem when
reinstalling.

The problems I am facing now is that I have bought several things that were
made after XP. I can't wait to see what happens when I try to reinstall XP
with all my opticals being connected to a PCI card. That is going to be fun.
 
Mark said:
You are right about the mass storage part. I accidentally reformatted
a back up drive because I got it confused with the internal. I
learned the hard way to have those unplugged. But the way I recall
the post, he listed printers and some other major hardware.
Click to expand...

Printers often have card readers built in. I install Windows as often as 50
times a month on various computers. Most of those installs are highly
automated but at least 10 - 20 are standard installs booting from the CD. I
have learned the hard way to not have any external devices hooked up. It
doesn't save any time and often causes problems.

Kerry
 
In message <eyDBcy6#[email protected]> "Kerry Brown"
Mark Smith wrote:



You should not have USB devices plugged in when installing XP. It may cause
the install to delay or even hang while it tries to find drivers. If they
are mass storage devices and formatted XP may end up on a partition other
than C:. It is always best to install with internal devices only and add
external devices later.
Click to expand...

This is one of the reasons I used an Adaptec USB2 PCI card for many
moons -- I could have my USB storage devices (a few of which are
installed in the PC) connected to that card and the installer wouldn't
see them, but they would start working once the OS install finished and
the Adaptec drivers were installed.

Unfortunately my current system no longer has enough PCI slots (and has
a good motherboard-based USB controller, so that reduces my other excuse
for using the Adaptec card) -- I wish I could turn off USB ports in the
BIOS though, but not all since I use a USB keyboard too.

Ahh well, such is life -- With any luck the next version of Windows will
have a smarter installer.
 
Thanks, that was my next plan. To try and reformat and reinstall. But I
still have to enter the same product number (off the back of my legitimate
multi-folder that XP came in). So want MS still know that it is me calling
again? The tech said no matter what I would have to get a new activation
code each time. Is that right?

When my video card gets here Friday, I will know soon enough, because that
is when I will be reformatting.
Click to expand...

A reformat and re-install is going to automatically require a
reactivation. Anytime you install or do a repair install it requires
a reactivation.

Simply installing a new vid card should not require a re-activation.
 
Carey said:
Product Activation Facts
http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/activation_faq.mspx

Windows XP Product Activation
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php
Click to expand...

I was all set to upgrade to XP from ME, just bought the CD from Walmart
the day before yesterday. However, given the fact that modern large
volume hard drives fail so often and the fact that I too use a USB
digital camera, I believe I'm going to install XP on a separate hard
drive and only use it for testing purposes.

When I got this computer, it was supposed to come with XP. After
considering the pros and cons of XP Product Activation, I told the
vendor (ABS) to install M.E. on it instead. After reading those two
links, I can see that my concerns were well justified.

I'm all for Microsoft protecting their product from piracy and think
that product activation is a good way of doing that. What I don't like
though, is the way that Microsoft has implemented this strategy. Horror
stories like Mark Smith's demonstrate that the system is flawed and unfair.

Also, honestly... *THREE VOTES* for a stupid NIC? Whatever was MS thinking?
 
Alias said:
(clipped)
Actually, if you clean install XP SP1, followed by SP 2, then updates,
then motherboard drivers, video card, audio card drivers, then programs,
and *then* devices like printers, cameras, etc., you're much better off.
Click to expand...

Thanks for mentioning this because I'm going to try to upgrade from ME
to XP Home SP2 using this technique. For the last couple of days, I was
thinking about how best to deal with the peripherals. However, can you
provide more info about why it's better to install all the programs
before attaching and detecting peripherals? With M.E., whenever I do a
format and total reinstall, I always make sure that all of my hardware
(including all peripherals) is functioning before installing any
programs (well, that is except for Winzip and Acroread).
 
John said:
Thanks for mentioning this because I'm going to try to upgrade from ME
to XP Home SP2 using this technique. For the last couple of days, I was
thinking about how best to deal with the peripherals. However, can you
provide more info about why it's better to install all the programs
before attaching and detecting peripherals? With M.E., whenever I do a
format and total reinstall, I always make sure that all of my hardware
(including all peripherals) is functioning before installing any
programs (well, that is except for Winzip and Acroread).
Click to expand...


I don't know why it's better. I only know that it has worked for me many
times.

Alias
 
Richard said:
I know that it seems to suck, but you just got a bad tech. A popup on your
screen will tell you exactly how many days you have to activate or
reactivate. Believe what your computer tells you, not some person from a
third world country.

I change hardware much more than others also. I have had to reactivate about
4-5 times over the years because of this. My situation is NOT the norm.
Many, many people buy a computer and used it until it dies, without even
adding one additional program or piece of hardware. They don't know that
they can. They replace what may go bad by sending the computer back to the
manufacturer. What they usually get is an exact replacement part.

Also, their computer may have, in fact, been activated by the manufacturer
or need no activation because of the way the manufacturer installs the
operating system on their computers. The customer/user does not even know
that the process exists.

You and I are different. I have learned to live with it and I am certain
that you can also. At most, it is a phone call of about 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

Well that makes three of us that are "different" and I suspect there are
millions more. There is no reason why paying customrs should be forced
to help MS catch pirates, especially when you consider that WPA and WGA
doesn't stop pirates one iota. In fact, it promotes piracy due to the
frustration that a paying user experiences leading him or her to want an
XP that needs no activation.

Alias
 
John said:
I was all set to upgrade to XP from ME, just bought the CD from Walmart
the day before yesterday. However, given the fact that modern large
volume hard drives fail so often and the fact that I too use a USB
digital camera, I believe I'm going to install XP on a separate hard
drive and only use it for testing purposes.

When I got this computer, it was supposed to come with XP. After
considering the pros and cons of XP Product Activation, I told the
vendor (ABS) to install M.E. on it instead. After reading those two
links, I can see that my concerns were well justified.

I'm all for Microsoft protecting their product from piracy and think
that product activation is a good way of doing that.
Click to expand...

How so? Pirated XP disks don't need to be activated.

What I don't like
though, is the way that Microsoft has implemented this strategy. Horror
stories like Mark Smith's demonstrate that the system is flawed and unfair.

Also, honestly... *THREE VOTES* for a stupid NIC? Whatever was MS thinking?
Click to expand...

What makes you think they were thinking?

Alias
 
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