Windows Needs to be Activated

**Aprox** · March 8th, 2007

I have an issue with Vista wanting to be be activated again, I downloaded and installed new SATA controller drivers via windows update yesterday and now it thinks I have a new computer. How many activations do I get before MS will make me buy a new copy of windows? And why would such a small change, software only warrant such a drastic measure? And finally, I have only 3 days to do this, but I have tried clicking on "activate now" and it tries to do it then tells me that the key is in use and that I need to buy a new one.... wtf?

Any help would be appreciated.. I might just go back to XP, Vista is cool and all but its turning out to be quite the headache.

**Petros** · March 8th, 2007

It's almost as if Microsoft is encouraging piracy, since you can find activation cracks from warez sites in thirty seconds rather than sitting on the phone for a half an hour with a "specialist".

**NetRyder** · March 8th, 2007

I actually ran into exactly this a few weeks ago as well...the only real issue I've run into with Vista since November.

Basically, it seems like the license manager is a little over-sensitive to certain hardware changes at this point (NVIDIA SATA driver changes seem to be affected). You have two options - you can try going through the phone activation system, which will take about 5 minutes of your time. That sort of worked for me - activation was successful, but Genuine Advantage started complaining after that. Your experience might differ, so you might want to try this first and see what happens.

Since that didn't really help me, I just rolled back the driver through Device Manager, ran the WGA tool again, and everything was sorted out.

Regardless of what you do, I would highly recommend reporting this directly to Microsoft through their forum (I already did this a few weeks ago) so that they're at least aware that this is affecting a number of people. This is something that can definitely be fixed with a software update.
http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/...1004&SiteID=25

**Aprox** · March 8th, 2007

Originally Posted by Petros

It's almost as if Microsoft is encouraging piracy, since you can find activation cracks from warez sites in thirty seconds rather than sitting on the phone for a half an hour with a "specialist".

Yeah really, not that OSNN supports such things *ahem* but do you know if any of them work, and well?

I might just install XP and wait for the Vista situation to get better, the performance is pretty miserable at the moment. Games run at about 50% of what they should with my 8800 and AA+HDR isnt working anymore plus other things. Maybe that will be my project for this weekend.

NetRyder, thanks for the advice. I will give that a go, especially reporting the issue to MS. Hopefully they can avoid problems like this in the future.

**American Zombie** · March 8th, 2007

Same thing happened to me with the SATA driver and the phone call took about 2 minutes. I would rather have the driver installed as then the drive is using the SCSI driver.

WGA stills works fine too.

If you ever called to activate XP then I can tell you the questions they ask before giving you the activation code are the same.

**dreamliner77** · March 8th, 2007

Last time I called to reactivate XP, it took 16 minutes and this was at 2am EST.

**Bman** · March 8th, 2007

Originally Posted by Aprox

Yeah really, not that OSNN supports such things *ahem* but do you know if any of them work, and well?

I might just install XP and wait for the Vista situation to get better, the performance is pretty miserable at the moment. Games run at about 50% of what they should with my 8800 and AA+HDR isnt working anymore plus other things. Maybe that will be my project for this weekend.

NetRyder, thanks for the advice. I will give that a go, especially reporting the issue to MS. Hopefully they can avoid problems like this in the future.

Yes I know of one that works, if you need it, contact me. I know a link.

**LeeJend** · March 8th, 2007

For Vista: The brute force keygen doesn't work, it was a hoak. There is an activation hack that does work.

Last time I had to phone activate XP because my LAN died it took me over 30 minutes, mostly on hold. This was at 11:00 PM.

It sounds like Vista overweights the HD ID like XP overweights the LAN MAC address. What a pain. Be very carefull swapping and moving hardware after activation. Each component is weighted into the re-activation test.

Aprox - feeling brave. Try this work around from XP on Vista. When you get the activation sorted. copy the Volume ID key off the HD and save it. If you copy the original volume ID back onto the HD after a driver change or reformat it should pass the activation check.

Has anyone confirmed what the Vista equivalent is to the WPA.DBL file? If it is known, make a backup so when experimenting with new hardware or drives you can always go back to the old activation.

**NetRyder** · March 8th, 2007

Originally Posted by Petros

...you can find activation cracks from warez sites in thirty seconds rather than sitting on the phone for a half an hour with a "specialist".

Originally Posted by dreamliner77

Last time I called to reactivate XP, it took 16 minutes and this was at 2am EST.

Did you guys have to speak to a person on the phone?
When I called, it was just an automated system that asked me to enter an activation code, and gave me another code to enter into the boxes in the activation window. As AZ said, it took just a couple of minutes.

**American Zombie** · March 8th, 2007

Originally Posted by NetRyder

Regardless of what you do, I would highly recommend reporting this directly to Microsoft through their forum (I already did this a few weeks ago) so that they're at least aware that this is affecting a number of people. This is something that can definitely be fixed with a software update. http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/...1004&SiteID=25

I thought that forum was for WGA issues not Vista activation.

WGA and Product Activation are very different things, and Activation questions do not belong in this forum.

Are you in the right place?

**NetRyder** · March 8th, 2007

Originally Posted by American Zombie

I thought that forum was for WGA issues not Vista activation. Are you in the right place?

You're right. My mistake. I linked to that forum since that's where I posted a thread when I ran into the Genuine Advantage failure issue (immediately after the re-activation issue) I mentioned above.

There are a number of threads related to just activation issues there too though, and MSFT folks seem to be watching those threads as well. So it might still not be a bad idea to mention your issue there so that they can keep track of how many people are being affected by it.

**American Zombie** · March 8th, 2007

When I called to reactivate the rep took down info as to why I had to and said this should not have happened.

You can also post in the newgroups as MS reps view that from time to time. Some people have posted about driver updates causing reactivation issues.

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/com...s/default.mspx

**Electronic Punk** · March 8th, 2007

I think MS will give you the benefit of the doubt and will constantly reset your keys.

I thought I had hit my MSDN activation cap and was getting annoyed how it wouldn't activate -- then I realised it was because I hadn't actually entered a key during registration (prefer to be lazy and cutnpaste!

)

**madmatt** · March 8th, 2007

Originally Posted by Electronic Punk

I thought I had hit my MSDN activation cap and was getting annoyed how it wouldn't activate -- then I realised it was because I hadn't actually entered a key during registration (prefer to be lazy and cutnpaste! )

Why am I not surprised?

I've had to call the activation line several times, especially when dealing with OEM Product Keys. I have never had any issues and the reps are very easy to work with (not always easy to understand). I can see that it would take 16 minutes at 2:00 AM.

**Petros** · March 8th, 2007

What really bothers the power users who update their systems often is the cumulative hassle of having to call MS several times. I don't want new keys, I want the OS to work without having to ask permission to use my own machine. Sure, it's Microsoft's prerogative to protect their operating system, but it doesn't annoy us any less knowing that.

**Shamus MacNoob** · March 8th, 2007

My favorite feature is haveing to reactive because I changed SATA RAID drivers !! ayaya

**Shamus MacNoob** · March 9th, 2007

Originally Posted by Shamus MacNoob

My favorite feature is haveing to reactive because I changed SATA RAID drivers !! ayaya

I see this was moved from where I posted it in the Vista my favorite feature thread , guess only good things are favorites

**NetRyder** · March 9th, 2007

Originally Posted by Petros

What really bothers the power users who update their systems often is the cumulative hassle of having to call MS several times. I don't want new keys, I want the OS to work without having to ask permission to use my own machine. Sure, it's Microsoft's prerogative to protect their operating system, but it doesn't annoy us any less knowing that.

I agree. Regardless of whether it takes 2 minutes or an hour to re-activate, it's still an unnecessary step that legitimate customers have to take. And then WGA validation is another additional potential trouble spot. It's one of those things that I think Microsoft needs to fix. There has to be a better way to handle all this.

I was using XP on various machines since 2001, and never had to re-activate any of them unnecessarily. From my experience, the license manager in Vista seems to be a little too sensitive to hardware changes at this point. This is exactly why I'm asking people to report issues like this directly to Microsoft, because it can certainly be corrected with a software update if enough people complain.

**American Zombie** · March 9th, 2007

Originally Posted by NetRyder

I was using XP on various machines since 2001, and never had to re-activate any of them unnecessarily. From my experience, the license manager in Vista seems to be a little too sensitive to hardware changes at this point. This is exactly why I'm asking people to report issues like this directly to Microsoft, because it can certainly be corrected with a software update if enough people complain.

Ya I thought Vista was supposed to be more relaxed with regards to hardware changes except for the mainboard.

**Electronic Punk** · March 9th, 2007

Originally Posted by Shamus MacNoob

My favorite feature is haveing to reactive because I changed SATA RAID drivers !! ayaya

Was it after installing the 15.00 drivers?
Heard really bad things about those anyway.

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #1
Aprox OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: August 2004 Location: California, USA Posts: 2,735 Blog Entries: 1 Reputation: 2036 Power: 138	Windows Needs to be Activated I have an issue with Vista wanting to be be activated again, I downloaded and installed new SATA controller drivers via windows update yesterday and now it thinks I have a new computer. How many activations do I get before MS will make me buy a new copy of windows? And why would such a small change, software only warrant such a drastic measure? And finally, I have only 3 days to do this, but I have tried clicking on "activate now" and it tries to do it then tells me that the key is in use and that I need to buy a new one.... wtf? Any help would be appreciated.. I might just go back to XP, Vista is cool and all but its turning out to be quite the headache.

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #2
Petros Thief IV Joined: May 2003 Location: Pacific Northwest Posts: 3,038 Reputation: 1647 Power: 153	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated It's almost as if Microsoft is encouraging piracy, since you can find activation cracks from warez sites in thirty seconds rather than sitting on the phone for a half an hour with a "specialist".

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #3
NetRyder Tech Junkie Joined: April 2002 Location: New York City Posts: 13,256 Reputation: 4260 Power: 294	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated I actually ran into exactly this a few weeks ago as well...the only real issue I've run into with Vista since November. Basically, it seems like the license manager is a little over-sensitive to certain hardware changes at this point (NVIDIA SATA driver changes seem to be affected). You have two options - you can try going through the phone activation system, which will take about 5 minutes of your time. That sort of worked for me - activation was successful, but Genuine Advantage started complaining after that. Your experience might differ, so you might want to try this first and see what happens. Since that didn't really help me, I just rolled back the driver through Device Manager, ran the WGA tool again, and everything was sorted out. Regardless of what you do, I would highly recommend reporting this directly to Microsoft through their forum (I already did this a few weeks ago) so that they're at least aware that this is affecting a number of people. This is something that can definitely be fixed with a software update. http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/...1004&SiteID=25 http://kunal.kundaje.net

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #4
Aprox OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: August 2004 Location: California, USA Posts: 2,735 Blog Entries: 1 Reputation: 2036 Power: 138	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Originally Posted by Petros It's almost as if Microsoft is encouraging piracy, since you can find activation cracks from warez sites in thirty seconds rather than sitting on the phone for a half an hour with a "specialist". Yeah really, not that OSNN supports such things ahem but do you know if any of them work, and well? I might just install XP and wait for the Vista situation to get better, the performance is pretty miserable at the moment. Games run at about 50% of what they should with my 8800 and AA+HDR isnt working anymore plus other things. Maybe that will be my project for this weekend. NetRyder, thanks for the advice. I will give that a go, especially reporting the issue to MS. Hopefully they can avoid problems like this in the future.

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #5
American Zombie OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: June 2004 Location: Seattle Posts: 2,849 Reputation: 2689 Power: 148	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Same thing happened to me with the SATA driver and the phone call took about 2 minutes. I would rather have the driver installed as then the drive is using the SCSI driver. WGA stills works fine too. If you ever called to activate XP then I can tell you the questions they ask before giving you the activation code are the same.

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March 8th, 2007	Top \| #6
dreamliner77 The Analog Kid Joined: March 2002 Location: Red Sox Nation Posts: 4,638 Reputation: 1111 Power: 178	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Last time I called to reactivate XP, it took 16 minutes and this was at 2am EST. "You can fight without ever winning, but never win without a fight." -Neil Peart of RUSH

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #7
Bman OSNN Designer Joined: July 2002 Location: Ottawa, Ontario Posts: 8,700 Blog Entries: 106 Reputation: 1386 Power: 218	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Originally Posted by Aprox Yeah really, not that OSNN supports such things ahem but do you know if any of them work, and well? I might just install XP and wait for the Vista situation to get better, the performance is pretty miserable at the moment. Games run at about 50% of what they should with my 8800 and AA+HDR isnt working anymore plus other things. Maybe that will be my project for this weekend. NetRyder, thanks for the advice. I will give that a go, especially reporting the issue to MS. Hopefully they can avoid problems like this in the future. Yes I know of one that works, if you need it, contact me. I know a link.

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #8
LeeJend OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: January 2003 Location: Fort Worth, TX Posts: 5,255 Reputation: 3386 Power: 196	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated For Vista: The brute force keygen doesn't work, it was a hoak. There is an activation hack that does work. Last time I had to phone activate XP because my LAN died it took me over 30 minutes, mostly on hold. This was at 11:00 PM. It sounds like Vista overweights the HD ID like XP overweights the LAN MAC address. What a pain. Be very carefull swapping and moving hardware after activation. Each component is weighted into the re-activation test. Aprox - feeling brave. Try this work around from XP on Vista. When you get the activation sorted. copy the Volume ID key off the HD and save it. If you copy the original volume ID back onto the HD after a driver change or reformat it should pass the activation check. Has anyone confirmed what the Vista equivalent is to the WPA.DBL file? If it is known, make a backup so when experimenting with new hardware or drives you can always go back to the old activation. Thought for the new millenium: In a world without walls and fences, who needs Windows and Gates? - Open Office - Firefox - Thunderbird - Gimp -Ubuntu - Red Hat -

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #9
NetRyder Tech Junkie Joined: April 2002 Location: New York City Posts: 13,256 Reputation: 4260 Power: 294	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Originally Posted by Petros ...you can find activation cracks from warez sites in thirty seconds rather than sitting on the phone for a half an hour with a "specialist". Originally Posted by dreamliner77 Last time I called to reactivate XP, it took 16 minutes and this was at 2am EST. Did you guys have to speak to a person on the phone? When I called, it was just an automated system that asked me to enter an activation code, and gave me another code to enter into the boxes in the activation window. As AZ said, it took just a couple of minutes. http://kunal.kundaje.net

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #10
American Zombie OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: June 2004 Location: Seattle Posts: 2,849 Reputation: 2689 Power: 148	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Originally Posted by NetRyder Regardless of what you do, I would highly recommend reporting this directly to Microsoft through their forum (I already did this a few weeks ago) so that they're at least aware that this is affecting a number of people. This is something that can definitely be fixed with a software update. http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/...1004&SiteID=25 I thought that forum was for WGA issues not Vista activation. WGA and Product Activation are very different things, and Activation questions do not belong in this forum. Are you in the right place?

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #11
NetRyder Tech Junkie Joined: April 2002 Location: New York City Posts: 13,256 Reputation: 4260 Power: 294	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Originally Posted by American Zombie I thought that forum was for WGA issues not Vista activation. Are you in the right place? You're right. My mistake. I linked to that forum since that's where I posted a thread when I ran into the Genuine Advantage failure issue (immediately after the re-activation issue) I mentioned above. There are a number of threads related to just activation issues there too though, and MSFT folks seem to be watching those threads as well. So it might still not be a bad idea to mention your issue there so that they can keep track of how many people are being affected by it. http://kunal.kundaje.net

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #12
American Zombie OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: June 2004 Location: Seattle Posts: 2,849 Reputation: 2689 Power: 148	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated When I called to reactivate the rep took down info as to why I had to and said this should not have happened. You can also post in the newgroups as MS reps view that from time to time. Some people have posted about driver updates causing reactivation issues. http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/com...s/default.mspx

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #13
Electronic Punk The Last High Joined: December 2001 Location: London Posts: 18,506 Blog Entries: 51 Reputation: 3652 Power: 346	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated I think MS will give you the benefit of the doubt and will constantly reset your keys. I thought I had hit my MSDN activation cap and was getting annoyed how it wouldn't activate -- then I realised it was because I hadn't actually entered a key during registration (prefer to be lazy and cutnpaste! )

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #14
madmatt Bow Down to the King Joined: April 2002 Location: New York Posts: 13,312 Reputation: 4090 Power: 294	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Originally Posted by Electronic Punk I thought I had hit my MSDN activation cap and was getting annoyed how it wouldn't activate -- then I realised it was because I hadn't actually entered a key during registration (prefer to be lazy and cutnpaste! ) Why am I not surprised? I've had to call the activation line several times, especially when dealing with OEM Product Keys. I have never had any issues and the reps are very easy to work with (not always easy to understand). I can see that it would take 16 minutes at 2:00 AM.

March 8th, 2007	Top \| #15
Petros Thief IV Joined: May 2003 Location: Pacific Northwest Posts: 3,038 Reputation: 1647 Power: 153	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated What really bothers the power users who update their systems often is the cumulative hassle of having to call MS several times. I don't want new keys, I want the OS to work without having to ask permission to use my own machine. Sure, it's Microsoft's prerogative to protect their operating system, but it doesn't annoy us any less knowing that.

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March 8th, 2007	Top \| #16
Shamus MacNoob OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: January 2002 Location: Brossard,Quebec Posts: 4,199 Blog Entries: 1 Reputation: 1481 Power: 178	Re: Windows Vista: Your Favorite Features My favorite feature is haveing to reactive because I changed SATA RAID drivers !! ayaya ASUS PN5-E SLI,Intel E8400,2 x 8800GTX 768mb SLI,ASUS VW266H 26 inch LCD, 8 GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer, Silverstone Strider 850watt PSU.Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

March 9th, 2007	Top \| #17
Shamus MacNoob OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: January 2002 Location: Brossard,Quebec Posts: 4,199 Blog Entries: 1 Reputation: 1481 Power: 178	Re: Windows Vista: Your Favorite Features Originally Posted by Shamus MacNoob My favorite feature is haveing to reactive because I changed SATA RAID drivers !! ayaya I see this was moved from where I posted it in the Vista my favorite feature thread , guess only good things are favorites ASUS PN5-E SLI,Intel E8400,2 x 8800GTX 768mb SLI,ASUS VW266H 26 inch LCD, 8 GB Crucial Ballistix Tracer, Silverstone Strider 850watt PSU.Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

March 9th, 2007	Top \| #18
NetRyder Tech Junkie Joined: April 2002 Location: New York City Posts: 13,256 Reputation: 4260 Power: 294	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Originally Posted by Petros What really bothers the power users who update their systems often is the cumulative hassle of having to call MS several times. I don't want new keys, I want the OS to work without having to ask permission to use my own machine. Sure, it's Microsoft's prerogative to protect their operating system, but it doesn't annoy us any less knowing that. I agree. Regardless of whether it takes 2 minutes or an hour to re-activate, it's still an unnecessary step that legitimate customers have to take. And then WGA validation is another additional potential trouble spot. It's one of those things that I think Microsoft needs to fix. There has to be a better way to handle all this. I was using XP on various machines since 2001, and never had to re-activate any of them unnecessarily. From my experience, the license manager in Vista seems to be a little too sensitive to hardware changes at this point. This is exactly why I'm asking people to report issues like this directly to Microsoft, because it can certainly be corrected with a software update if enough people complain. http://kunal.kundaje.net

March 9th, 2007	Top \| #19
American Zombie OSNN Veteran Addict Joined: June 2004 Location: Seattle Posts: 2,849 Reputation: 2689 Power: 148	Re: Windows Needs to be Activated Originally Posted by NetRyder I was using XP on various machines since 2001, and never had to re-activate any of them unnecessarily. From my experience, the license manager in Vista seems to be a little too sensitive to hardware changes at this point. This is exactly why I'm asking people to report issues like this directly to Microsoft, because it can certainly be corrected with a software update if enough people complain. Ya I thought Vista was supposed to be more relaxed with regards to hardware changes except for the mainboard.

March 9th, 2007	Top \| #20
Electronic Punk The Last High Joined: December 2001 Location: London Posts: 18,506 Blog Entries: 51 Reputation: 3652 Power: 346	Re: Windows Vista: Your Favorite Features Originally Posted by Shamus MacNoob My favorite feature is haveing to reactive because I changed SATA RAID drivers !! ayaya Was it after installing the 15.00 drivers? Heard really bad things about those anyway.