Vista being silly with Activation, please help!

[Technex]

Hi guys,

Me and my dad share a PC. Both separate hard drives but the same PC case/system.

We have two vista 64bit OEI licences which cost quite a bit!

In the past we have always had problems, just buying a new HDD (old one was formatted and put in loft) required us to phone up the activation line (as the online one said it was already in use) a number of times before it would accept our product code.

Today I just updated the BIOS and it says we have to activate both our Windows again, but it says already in use online!!!!!!

Any idea on what to do here guys? You can't seem to phone up Microsoft.

Thanks.

 

[Ging3r]

Just activate via phone, only takes 2mins

 

[Technex]

Hi Ging3r, yes that just worked fine for mine once again (even though online doesn't work for some reason) but my dad's doesn't seem to be accepting it. I'll try again soon though. It has done this before and after a few times phoning it went through.

Thanks.

 

[mayhem]

On oem licenses you only get 3 chances before you have to phone through for to be activated.

Just phone technical support.

 

[Technex]

Both working fine now guys, just dreading the next hardware change! Hehehehe...

Thanks very much for the info.

Mayhem that sounds about right, at first the online activation used to always work fine.

 

[mayhem]

yeh mate they are right .....s with OEM software. Only retail products can be activated over an over again via the internet or Business versions.

I expect it to get worse with windows 7

 

[Technex]

This is one of the reasons why I'm not pre-ordering Windows 7. Anyway that's a whole new story I probably should, but I'm going to stick with Vista for now.

 

[Rastalovich]

A license number, even a legit one, can be assumed to be in-use/online for around 48hours after last use iirc.

Think it says somewhere in some windows text somewhere.?!?!

 

[Ging3r]

Windows 7 shouldnt be as bad, the retail versions are the same price as Vista OEM, so people should just go for retail instead