My Vista activation woes, i feel like a naughty school kid !

[foolish501]

I bought Vista Ultimate in Feb 07 when it was released (i got the free Vista Business from MS at the start of this year when microsoft was giving it away free), and took advantage of MS's offer of being able to purchase to additional licences for Home Premium for $50 each that i then installed on my laptop, and wife's pc.

I started running into problems with the software saying it needed to be reactivated after doing BIOS upgrades. At the time i had an Abit AB9 pro motherboard, and Abit were good about releasing updates pretty much once a month. I would upgrade in the hope that the motherboard would support dual channel memory with the memory i had.

Each time i would do a bios upgrade it would say my copy of Vista needed to be re-activated. And each time i would try to do it online, and it wouldn't work, so it would direct me to call and the automated system wouldn't work so i would have to speak to somebody.

Each time i did this i felt like a naughty school boy, though thru no fault of my own i was having to continue calling microsoft to activate my software.

After a while i got so pissed off with reactivating that i swapped over bootable hard drives, and instead would boot to XP instead.

Then in November with Crysis coming out i thought it was time to go back to Vista so i could see it in all it's glory. By then i had upgraded my motherboard so i had to wipe out my vista installation and reinstall.

I was able to reactivate online without a problem, and hoped that microsoft had fixed the problems with the activation, but that hadn't happened. I installed SP1 RC this week and then got the dreaded message again that i needed to reactivate, so had it activate online and it said it was successful. Well it was only successful for 1 day, because the next day i got another message saying i had 3 days to activate.

So again i called microsoft, and explained the problem, and had them read them numbers to me again, and got activated.

Now i'm dreading the fact that i should be getting a new motherboard for xmas, and i'm probably going to have to reactivate it all over again.

 

[trung1977]

Microsoft sure knows how to punish legit users. My copy of Vista Business did the same thing and I hadn't even changed anything!

 

[toadeater]

I wonder how long someone is able to maintain their sanity working for Microsoft tech support? I bet it's a week at most. I think I would stab my eyes out with a pen after answering a few hundred activation phone calls.

 

[wazzledoozle]

.... and this is exactly why you dont install a non-final service pack. Stupid move.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: toadeater
I wonder how long someone is able to maintain their sanity working for Microsoft tech support? I bet it's a week at most. I think I would stab my eyes out with a pen after answering a few hundred activation phone calls.

Depends what the pay is. It sounds like a fairly easy job.

 

[nerp]

I think there would be a point to complaining about this if they DIDN'T let you re-activate.

Fact is, they have.

 

[wordsworm]

I think there would be a point to complaining about this if they DIDN'T let you re-activate.

I disagree 100% with your evaluation. I don't want to spend my time on the telephone every week or every month so that I can continue to use a product I paid for. If it's this much of a hassle to use a legit product, I'd probably consider putting on an eye patch, crying out 'argh, matey!" I think if they *didn't* reactivate, that's when you scream bloody murder and you take them to small claims.

Of all the customer service I've faced in my life, MS has to rank amongst the worst. Right up there with the likes of HP and Bell. At least with HP and Bell it was easy to replace them. Now I use Canon and any phone/Internet not from Bell. With MS, unfortunately, I'd prefer to stub my toe, breaking off the big toe's toe nail than go to Apple.

 

[Nothinman]

Each time i would do a bios upgrade it would say my copy of Vista needed to be re-activated.

A BIOS updated can change the way hardware is presented to the OS and MS likely even uses parts of the BIOS in their activation hash so this isn't too surprising. You do this often enough to care?

 

[filmore crashcart]

I think there would be a point to complaining about this if they DIDN'T let you re-activate.

You DON'T think having to re-activate on a phone an over priced OS every time you do something to it merits a complaint????? This kind of paranoia by Microsoft is exactly why I stay away from Vista.
It goads me to see how when every time someone writes a legit complaint about this OS rip off, you have all these MS apologist responding with these "must be your fault" replies.

 

[Dacalo]

Originally posted by: foolish501
And each time i would try to do it online, and it wouldn't work, so it would direct me to call and the automated system wouldn't work so i would have to speak to somebody.

That is annoying as hell. Whenever I reinstalled the OS, it prompted me to activate, but I would ALWAYS have to call someone. I would understand if I had changed any hardware, but I hadn't. Internet activation has never worked for me for Vista, but for XP it DID work. Talk about taking a step backwards.

 

[soonerproud]

Originally posted by: filmore crashcart

I think there would be a point to complaining about this if they DIDN'T let you re-activate.

You DON'T think having to re-activate on a phone an over priced OS every time you do something to it merits a complaint????? This kind of paranoia by Microsoft is exactly why I stay away from Vista.
It goads me to see how when every time someone writes a legit complaint about this OS rip off, you have all these MS apologist responding with these "must be your fault" replies.

Better stay away from XP too. These very same things can cause you to have to reactivate under XP.

 

[nerp]

Most of the reasons for re-activation are spelled out pretty clearly and shouldn't surprise anyone. Fact is MS feels it necessary to protect their software from rampant piracy and I don't blame them. I've only had to re-activate after major hardware changes and as I said before, it took about five minutes of my life. Ranting and raving about product activation is a very petty thing to complain about if you ask me. I don't look at the world as them vs. me. As a creator of copyrighted material myself, I can respect MS taking steps to combat piracy.

I'm also not constantly futzing around with my hardware therby reducing the potential for activation problems. If I buy a new motherboard and plan on swapping hardware and bios' around, I'm taking advantage of the grace period between installation and required activation and activating only when stable.

 

[zpe]

I'm surprised you haven't used an OEM activation crack. I would get tired activating that much. Getting around activation and genuine advantage is quiet easy these days, at least that's what I've read. You won't get many complaints from MS apologists given that you spent $500 on Vista.

 

[nerp]

Originally posted by: zpe
I'm surprised you haven't used an OEM activation crack. I would get tired activating that much. Getting around activation and genuine advantage is quiet easy these days, at least that's what I've read. You won't get many complaints from MS apologists given that you spent $500 on Vista.

I got Vista for free through a promotion. If I had to buy it, I'd get an OEM copy off newegg. Pretty cheap. And the easiest way to get around genuine advantage is to run legit software. It's as simple as clicking "next" essentially. I guess if you're living check to check paying for an OS seems like a waste of money but for others even a retail copy of an operating system is chump change. Ever fill a 400 gallon oil tank when home heating oil is $3/gal?

The shrill whining about product activation needs to stop. There are alternatives if you don't like it. For the overwhelming majority of computer users, product activation is a non-issue. There's nothing apologetic going on here. Don't like it, don't use it. All the moaning and crying is beginning to sound pretty juvenile. Face it: there's a lot of people out there using and liking Vista and all the trollplowing in the world isn't going to magically spoil some party you think exists but was never thrown.