Problem activating Vista today...

[fretman]

I've been able to activate Vista via the internet for about 10 times without a problem. I'm using the same computer and everything is the same. There's been no hardware changes, etc. What I've been doing is trying different partitions on my hard drive until I find one I'm comfortable with.

But tonight my luck ran out. I couldn't activate Vista via the internet. I got a message saying that Vista is already activated on another machine...I'm hoping that Microsoft is recognizing it's my own machine.

Anyways, I called them up and Microsoft activated it for me.

I asked the person on the phone if I would have the same problem again if I reformatted my hard drive and created new partitions again. He said he didn't know as he wasn't a tech person.

The only thing different about this time was I tried to activate Vista more than once in the same day.

Can someone explain what may have happened as to why I wasn't able to activate this time?

Or is there a limit that Microsoft puts on the number of times you can activate over the internet.

Thanks for the help.

 

[mechBgon]

In the past, there's been a rolling time window. Activate Windows more than a certain number of times, in less than a certain amount of time, and you may need to call. After a certain amount of time, it resets.

Big picture: that's a lot of Vista installation you're doing there. Can I suggest you just don't activate until you've finalized your setup? disable automagic activation with this checkbox during installation

Also, this topic fits better in Operating Systems, so it will be move there in a bit.

 

[Nothinman]

Why are you activating every time you do an installation? You have a few weeks to run without activation, just run like that until you're sure you have it setup right.

 

[DrGreen2007]

I agree, then theres also the 'fix' to extend the period another 30 days, and you can do that 2x I believe...total 90 days, I hope you can figure out your partitions in 90 days

 

[fretman]

Thanks to everyone for the help. The reason why I always activated after reformatting my hard drive was because I thought that it was possible for people to steal my activation key and then use it for themselves. And then I would be out of luck for sure.

However, I think I have everything in order now. I probably won't be playing around with the activation anymore...fingers crossed.

Thanks again.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: fretmanI thought that it was possible for people to steal my activation key and then use it for themselves.

Since the activation key only exists on the packaging (It's not on the disk), someone would have to break into your house to get it, and I'd imagine that a Windows activation key would be rather low on their list of stuff to steal.

 

[fretman]

Originally posted by: Billb2

Originally posted by: fretmanI thought that it was possible for people to steal my activation key and then use it for themselves.

Since the activation key only exists on the packaging (It's not on the disk), someone would have to break into your house to get it, and I'd imagine that a Windows activation key would be rather low on their list of stuff to steal.

Can the key be stolen online?

 

[QuixoticOne]

Actually, it IS on the disc data when you install the OS and give it your key info.

And people steal keys for OSs, games, etc. all the time via malware, just like they take your passwords and whatever else they can get.

Originally posted by: fretman

Originally posted by: Billb2

Originally posted by: fretmanI thought that it was possible for people to steal my activation key and then use it for themselves.

Since the activation key only exists on the packaging (It's not on the disk), someone would have to break into your house to get it, and I'd imagine that a Windows activation key would be rather low on their list of stuff to steal.

Can the key be stolen online?

 

[fretman]

Originally posted by: fretman

Originally posted by: Billb2

Originally posted by: fretmanI thought that it was possible for people to steal my activation key and then use it for themselves.

Since the activation key only exists on the packaging (It's not on the disk), someone would have to break into your house to get it, and I'd imagine that a Windows activation key would be rather low on their list of stuff to steal.

Can the key be stolen online?

Thanks. Hopefully mine won't get stolen.

 

[Billb2]

Originally posted by: fretman

Originally posted by: Billb2

Originally posted by: fretmanI thought that it was possible for people to steal my activation key and then use it for themselves.

Since the activation key only exists on the packaging (It's not on the disk), someone would have to break into your house to get it, and I'd imagine that a Windows activation key would be rather low on their list of stuff to steal.

Can the key be stolen online?

No.