Finding Issues with Validation While Trying to Provide Support

  • Thread starter Thread starter jaafaman
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J

jaafaman

I'm at wit's end now, and still can't find a reasonable approach to the
validation/activation process. Could someone provide any suggestions?

See, the problem is that I often use my system to help others with theirs.
Right now, I'm spending a lot of time in the Nvidia nZone and SLI forums,
having just assembled, tuned and debugged a new nForce 680i SLI system with
two 8800GTSs. I log into those forums as jaafaman as well, so it's not hard
to find me. I've pretty much figured out this entire system, and spend a
good bit of my free time helping others resolve their issues (where here
everyone likes to dis MS, there they trash Nvidia - I just like to set 'em
straight and get their machines working).

Problem is, with the new activation and validation process, EVERY little
hardware change or reconconfiguration seems to trigger a call to renew the
entire process all over again. And because I have to do this often, it boils
down to me having to get on the phone with MS as often as twice a week.

C'mon, folks. I've been a loyal customer since 1989. I have every optical
disk of every piece of software or upgrade that I've ever purchased and have
HD archives of the floppy images before those. My system is set up to run
three OSs, yes, but in keeping with the "one book, one reader" philosophy
they are all on seperate, bootable SATAs so that only one of them can be
active at any given time. And I am the single, soul individual with any kind
of access to my system?

Why is my reward to constantly have to jump through hoops to satisfy the
same requirements over and over again? CAN THIS SYSTEM NOT BE TIED TO
SOMETHING MORE PERMANENT, or at least stable - like the CPU serial number or
something?

I just treid booting into Vista Home Premium x86 only to be told some
security protocol has been violated and that my entire installation is now
illegal. Does that now mean I have to return my retail copy of that, or the
x64 version that MS itself sent me? Does MS distribute pirated copies of its
own SW?

The only thing I can think of is that I shouldn't have defragged that disk
from within XP Pro, and that some files really are back to being
"immovable".

Is there any means possible to get an activation and validation to last more
than the lifespan of a fruitfly?

Or do I have to give up any and all hope of providing reasonable support to
folks who could actually use it?...

jaafaman
 
Welcome to the age of DMCP. We don't own anything we buy anymore,we rent it
for a specific purpose and when we need to "re-purpose" we are ****ed.
Excuse the language. The only way to change this,as far as I can tell, is if
enough people decide they won't stand for it.Either by not buying or getting
Congress involved. Ha!Fat chance.
I feel your pain.I've got an unopened copy of Vista Home Premium sitting
here. I decided to wait for my next upgrade to use it. Because I'm a gamer
my upgrade won't just be a new video card or cpu.It'll be the
motherboard,ram,cpu and vid card.So you see that will invalidate my
copy.Geez.
 
Jaafaman--

Call them once more>ask for activation>read them your part # on DVD>get a
key gen that works.None of this should be happening. It's not my experience
every hdw addition triggers reactivation although sometimes it can.

Good luck,

CH
 
Chad Harris said:
Jaafaman--

Call them once more>ask for activation>read them your part # on DVD>get a
key gen that works.None of this should be happening. It's not my
experience every hdw addition triggers reactivation although sometimes it
can.

Good luck,

CH
Click to expand...

Thanks very much, Chuck. I knew there had to be a reasonable compromise
somewhere...

....jaafaman
 
don't look said:
...Because I'm a gamer my upgrade won't just be a new video card
or cpu.It'll be the motherboard,ram,cpu and vid card...
Click to expand...

Oooh...

Then I can definitely recommend the nVidia 680i SLI rig w/C2D and G80 GPUs,
but that's getting off-topic...

....jaafaman
 
Addendum for clarification
...It's not my experience every hdw addition triggers reactivation
although sometimes it can.
Click to expand...

To be fair, not all of them are triggered simply by hardware changes. And I
do know that CPU serial numbers are one of the ten items used to create the
activation hash code. But I was pretty heated when I found my Vista install
to be "illegal".

I'm one of the lucky ones in that I have a fully-functional, totally nVidia
based system that not only works but does so spectacularly. And because of
my choice in OEMs, I find that I run as close as you can get to nVidia's
design references. Such being the case, it makes an excellent starting point
for troubleshooting.

I go through a lot of configuration changes to set the system up as closely
as possible to create their problem when necessary. As my experience base
grows, the need for reconfigurations is dwindling, to be sure. But I still
run into cases with too many unknowns to rely on simple deductive reasoning.
By the time I configure back to normal, it's usually kicked off the
validation process.

And sometimes I recreate the problem _too_ well and end up trashing a disk.
Another reinstall. Another validation.

Because I jump in and out of the two versions of Vista (x86 and x64) based
on the same product key, occassionally I'll be online and will receive the
message that my activation is no longer valid because the registration key
is already in use.

You get the picture. In all, it really does end up requiring me to call MS
about twice a week. Any more often and I may as well get on first name basis
with the operators.

And thanks again for the lead. I sent an e-mail to MS to enquire about the
process through traceable means to possibly help support the validity of my
needs and request...

....jaafaman
 
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