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Vista forcing me to reactivate after 1 memory upgrade

B

bbear1

Junior Member
Today I upgraded my ram from 1GB to 2GB. I had an issue with one of the DIMMs so I had to reboot a few times to troubleshoot (one of the DIMMs was not completely seated). When I got everything working and booted into Vista I was greeted with the following message:

"Windows has been deactivated due to a hardware change. You must reactivate Windows within 3 days or Windows will stop working"

When I try to use the activation tool it tells me that my key is already in use on another computer and says I have to buy a new key from Microsoft. Now I have to call Microsoft on the phone to resolve this. All I did was upgrade my ram and I'm livid right now.
 
Hey you must be using OEM version. My friend is using Windows Vista Retail and he upgraded his RAM to 4 GB- it didn't ask re-activation.
 
Originally posted by: frostedflakes
Don't you get a month to activate? Why only 3 days?
Click to expand...
Once you've Activated an XP install, any "excessive" hardware changes require a re-Activation within 3 days. Apparently Vista has the same deadline.

This is better that the original version of XP, which required you to re-Activate IMMEDIATELY after the making the change. You couldn't get back into XP until you re-Activated it. This changed with XP SP1.
 
I'm using the retail version of Home Premium. I can't call them now because their phone support is closed. I have to wait until 6AM PST. Vista saw my memory troubleshooting as an "excessive" hardware change. That sucks.

EDIT:
I dug up their activation hotline number which seems to be 24/7. I'm on hold now. It's 4:30 in the morning and I'm on hold for 20 minutes. I'm guessing I'm not the only person with a vista activation problem :frown:
 
UPDATE:

Well here is what happened. I called the Microsoft activation hotline and spoke to a computer answer system. After reading out a long identification number provided by the Vista activation tool the system told me I needed to speak to a human to resolve this. I was put on hold for approx 30 minutes. Call was taken by a guy in an Indian call center. I explained my problem to him. He asked me how many PCs Vista was installed on. He asked me to read the first 6 digits of the identification number. After holding another 2 minutes he said that he was unable to find my number in the system. I then had to read out the entire number to him...(It's a pretty long number... at least 40 digits). He then gave me an equally long number to enter into a confirmation box in the Vista activation tool. I clicked next... 5 seconds later activation was completed.

I never had this problem with XP and I've done major upgrades including changing the motherboard to another model, updating the videocard several times, and installing new hard drives. Vista seems to be very sensitive about what hardware changes you make to your PC.

If you want to call India:
1. Remove 1 memory DIMM from your system.
2. Reboot
3. Reinstall the DIMM
4. Reboot
5. Congrats. Your Vista is deactivated. Hope you don't have to wait on hold as long as I did 🙁
 
Originally posted by: bbear1
I'm using the retail version of Home Premium. I can't call them now because their phone support is closed. I have to wait until 6AM PST. Vista saw my memory troubleshooting as an "excessive" hardware change. That sucks.

EDIT:
I dug up their activation hotline number which seems to be 24/7. I'm on hold now. It's 4:30 in the morning and I'm on hold for 20 minutes. I'm guessing I'm not the only person with a vista activation problem :frown:
Click to expand...

This sounds like a bunch of crap if you ask me! Microsoft can go to hell! If I want to upgrade my memory I'd better not have to get their permission! :|

Let us know how it goes.
 
Originally posted by: bbear1
UPDATE:

Well here is what happened. I called the Microsoft activation hotline and spoke to a computer answer system. After reading out a long identification number provided by the Vista activation tool the system told me I needed to speak to a human to resolve this. I was put on hold for approx 30 minutes. Call was taken by a guy in an Indian call center. I explained my problem to him. He asked me how many PCs Vista was installed on. He asked me to read the first 6 digits of the identification number. After holding another 2 minutes he said that he was unable to find my number in the system. I then had to read out the entire number to him...(It's a pretty long number... at least 40 digits). He then gave me an equally long number to enter into a confirmation box in the Vista activation tool. I clicked next... 5 seconds later activation was completed.

I never had this problem with XP and I've done major upgrades including changing the motherboard to another model, updating the videocard several times, and installing new hard drives. Vista seems to be very sensitive about what hardware changes you make to your PC.

If you want to call India:
1. Remove 1 memory DIMM from your system.
2. Reboot
3. Reinstall the DIMM
4. Reboot
5. Congrats. Your Vista is deactivated. Hope you don't have to wait on hold as long as I did 🙁
Click to expand...

I went through this same procedure several times with my OEM copy of XP. Not that big of a deal but very annoying.

Now having to go through this crap just because you added some memory is complete BS!
 
Yeah what I actually did to cause this was

1. I activated Vista with 1GB of ram on release day.
2. Tonight I installed 2 x 512MB DIMMs but 1 was not seated correctly. BIOS did not boot.
3. I removed 1 DIMM. Vista booted and saw 1.5GB of ram
4. I reinstalled the DIMM properly this time. Vista booted and saw 2GB of ram, and deactivated itself

I don't think this constitutes an excessive hardware change.
 
Originally posted by: Aberforth
Whats the automated Phone Activation for?
Click to expand...

Automated Phone activation lets you activate your Vista over the phone e.g. if you don't have an internet connection.

It also takes you to the activation hotline where you can speak to a human. I wish it said that somewhere. I wasted time searching Microsoft.com for that number when all I had to do was click "automated phone activation"
 
there is something wrong...just upgrading RAM doesn't require Re-activation...I've seen it. My friend keeps switching his graphics card, ram. He is using Ultimate Retail....something very fishy going on here
 
Maybe it's a bug and I just got lucky? Or maybe Home Premium is more picky about hardware changes than Vista Ultimate.
 
Had the same problem with my XP Pro retail Upgrade .... was testing a 1GB RAM stick and had popped out one of the 512mb stick sand swapped in the 1gb stick. After determining the stick was fine, I put the 512 stick back in and XP immediately requested that I re-activate it !!
 
Microsoft has claimed that Vista is MORE LENIENT than XP when it comes to hardware changes. As we all know, there's no way that XP would complain when only the memory size was changed. Memory size was one point on a ten point check list, and you needed to exceed something like five points in the last 120 days before XP would complain and force you to call Microsoft.
 
Originally posted by: bbear1
Maybe it's a bug and I just got lucky? Or maybe Home Premium is more picky about hardware changes than Vista Ultimate.
Click to expand...

It probably had more to do with the rapididy of the changes to your system. Maybe Vista has some kind of "changes during a certain time period" algorithm which causes it to default and deactivate.

Just a thought though.



On an aside, XP OEM requires you to do this kind of thing alot. (I work at a white box computer store) Usually the process doesn't take as long as it did for you, maybe they're still hiring operators for the Vista line.
 
Originally posted by: bbear1
Maybe it's a bug and I just got lucky? Or maybe Home Premium is more picky about hardware changes than Vista Ultimate.
Click to expand...

The long wait is unusual, but so is the reactivation you went thru at all. Not sure why that triggered, but this is unusual, are you sure you didn't hit/reseat something else as well during the process (or something funky happened while the memory was mis-seated?)

Bill
 
I've had to do this at least 4 or 5 times with winXP OEM, but it was usually due due to a more than one thing changed like, removed a hard drive, replace mobo and cpu. I find this very annoying too, but it sound like it isn't going to change so i guess we have to deal with it if we want to you ms products.

BTW i have changed my sound card only and it didn't me an issue so that is good. i guess in a couple months with i upgrade my graphics card and add another hard-drive I'll see if it still likes me 🙂
 
probably took long BECAUSE he was on early in the morning. its not that everone is calling MS- nobody's at work at 4am to answer calls. people who work telemarketing know all about the 4th shift, its just one guy sleeping on his keyboard... or out in the car smokin a fattie

OEM and RETAIL activation policies are identical for vista. it seems it just doesnt like rapid changing hardware, as said. at least they arent killing keys, im not sure why everyone is so mad. they give you three days to sort it out, its not like you HAVE to be on the phone at 4 am
 
Originally posted by: wirednuts
probably took long BECAUSE he was on early in the morning. its not that everone is calling MS- nobody's at work at 4am to answer calls. people who work telemarketing know all about the 4th shift, its just one guy sleeping on his keyboard... or out in the car smokin a fattie

OEM and RETAIL activation policies are identical for vista. it seems it just doesnt like rapid changing hardware, as said. at least they arent killing keys, im not sure why everyone is so mad. they give you three days to sort it out, its not like you HAVE to be on the phone at 4 am
Click to expand...

Umm, do you know what time it is in India when it's 4am in the callers time-zone?
 
I updated Alcohol 120% once and had to reactivate WinXP. Apparently they don't like virtual drive device ID changes either :roll:
 
Originally posted by: bbear1
Maybe it's a bug and I just got lucky? Or maybe Home Premium is more picky about hardware changes than Vista Ultimate.
Click to expand...
It may not have been *just* the memory change that triggered deactivation. That may have just been the final change among several.

For example, did you activate before installing all your drivers? Because the drivers could bring in a new NIC or two (depending on motherboard), seemingly-new mass-storage controllers, additional third-party mass-storage controllers on some mobos, possibly change the percieved identity of the GPU...

...and then you finally change the amount of RAM by 50% on top of everything else, and Vista finally puts its foot down. To you, the RAM seems like the first change, because it's the only physical change, but to Vista it might seem like the fourth or fifth change. Does that make sense?

Cliffs: Activate only after all drivers are installed, so that the apparent changes in hardware that drivers may cause are all covered by your initial activation.
 
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