How can I re-activate Vista?

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I've had and OEM install of Vista for just 2 days. After install I
succesfully activated it. I then spent a day trying to get my soundcard to
work which involved flashing my BIOS to a newer version and swapping the
soundcard to different PCI slots. Now Vista is demanding I re-activate but
won't accept my product key online or over the phone. I can't talk to a human
about this until Monday and Vista is going to de-activate itself by the end
of today. What the hell am I supposed to do? I am a legitmimate user with a
genuine problem but with this kind of difficulty just using Vista I can see
why people would be so keen to pirate it!
 
Jim said:
I've had and OEM install of Vista for just 2 days. After install I
succesfully activated it. I then spent a day trying to get my
soundcard to work which involved flashing my BIOS to a newer version
and swapping the soundcard to different PCI slots. Now Vista is
demanding I re-activate but won't accept my product key online or
over the phone. I can't talk to a human about this until Monday and
Vista is going to de-activate itself by the end of today. What the
hell am I supposed to do? I am a legitmimate user with a genuine
problem but with this kind of difficulty just using Vista I can see
why people would be so keen to pirate it!
Click to expand...

Can't you reinstall it without a key... you get 30 days use, don't you,
before you have to activate?
 
I suppose I could re-install and not activate it (giving me 30 days as you
say) but its certianly a very unessecarry pain in the backside to do so to
use a product i paid for.
 
I have often wondered why people activate their installed copy of Windows
"before" they have the operating system configured to their liking. This
includes the installation of hardware and software.

Do all that you need to do. Then activate your system. Then, make an image
of the activated system. Using this image, you can always go back to a
freshly configured (and activated) operating system with all of your
software and hardware drivers already in place.

From there you can start to screw it up anew! (-:

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

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!
 
Well, Richard, many users are just average users. They do
what the OS directs them to do. Your advice is good, but
when a user sees that little activation notification pop up
telling them to activate, they do. They do so because that's
what it says do. It doesn't say do this or that before you
activate. You're an advanced user, most are not.

I have often wondered why, in the year 2007, the largest/richest
software company in the world hasn't come up with a better way.

I also wonder why, at least at launch, there aren't some
Microsoft employees here answering questions in Microsoft's
official forums.


-Michael
 
If you read most posts, as the MVP's do, you would see that Microsoft
employees stop in occasionally on their own time. They are not required to
(as far as I know). They answer questions in their field of expertise, as we
all do.

Even with an answer as I have given, though it is too late to help the
original poster, others - if they read - may find enlightenment from the
information.

Read and you will see them here.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

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!



MICHAEL said:
Well, Richard, many users are just average users. They do
what the OS directs them to do. Your advice is good, but
when a user sees that little activation notification pop up
telling them to activate, they do. They do so because that's
what it says do. It doesn't say do this or that before you
activate. You're an advanced user, most are not.

I have often wondered why, in the year 2007, the largest/richest
software company in the world hasn't come up with a better way.

I also wonder why, at least at launch, there aren't some
Microsoft employees here answering questions in Microsoft's
official forums.


-Michael
Click to expand...
 
I have been participating in these forums since June.

I have seen maybe a handful of Microsoft employees,
very sporadic postings.

Whether or not they are required to be here is irrelevant.
They should be here full force en masse at launch.


-Michael

Richard Urban said:
If you read most posts, as the MVP's do, you would see that Microsoft employees stop in
occasionally on their own time. They are not required to (as far as I know). They answer
questions in their field of expertise, as we all do.

Even with an answer as I have given, though it is too late to help the original poster,
others - if they read - may find enlightenment from the information.

Read and you will see them here.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

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!
Click to expand...
 
And unless you think to turn it off, you get automatic activation by default
with Vista, if I recall.


MICHAEL said:
Well, Richard, many users are just average users. They do
what the OS directs them to do. Your advice is good, but
when a user sees that little activation notification pop up
telling them to activate, they do. They do so because that's
what it says do. It doesn't say do this or that before you
activate. You're an advanced user, most are not.

I have often wondered why, in the year 2007, the largest/richest
software company in the world hasn't come up with a better way.

I also wonder why, at least at launch, there aren't some
Microsoft employees here answering questions in Microsoft's
official forums.


-Michael
Click to expand...
 
That's correct. I forgot about that. Colin B. even mentioned
as he has been testing some things that he had to make sure
to uncheck that.

-Michael

John Barnes said:
And unless you think to turn it off, you get automatic activation by default with Vista, if I
recall.
Click to expand...
 
I did activate as part of the installation process, as all my hardware was
configured how I wanted it and worked fine in XP I assumed I wouldn't need to
make any changes at a hardware level, although I was quite expecting to need
to make lots of effort with drivers and software etc.
I has also read that Vista would be more lenient with hardware changes than
XP and considering I simply moved my soundcard to different PCI slots and
flashed my BIOS I honestly did not expect to have to re-activate at all.
Apparently it gave me 3 days to re-activate but didn't tell me this until
today (with only 1 day remaining). I think its a poor show for a company as
big as MS not to have staff on call over the weekend to help with simple
issues like this, especially following a product launch of this size. From my
perspective I have paid to use a product and have not in done anything
illegal with it and yet I am not able to use it and have no way of resolving
this issue in a sensible fashion until monday.

John Barnes said:
And unless you think to turn it off, you get automatic activation by default
with Vista, if I recall.
Click to expand...
 
I'm all busted up inside reading your letter. One of the keen new features
that Microsoft touted in their hype over Vista was the enhanced SECURITY
features of the new product. The public be damned. But, I'm sure I'm not
telling you anything you didn't already know. I've been in this newsgroup
thirty minutes, long enough to find out that Vista's not for me. Thanks for
the heads up.
Screw you, Bill.
 
Im having this same problem, Vista wont activate it says that "my product key
is already in use" which makes no sense cause this is the only computer I
have with vista on it, and I purchased the software legally, Ive tried
activating it over the phone, and online and have also tried the "chage
product key" option in vista control panel, nothing works. Now its giving me
a few days to activate windows or I will lose functionability. This doesnt
make sense...
 
WOW sound like somebody already wrote a key generator for Vista....ur the
victim...call MS and ask for a new key...you were unlucky enough to have the
same key they made
 
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