Activation problem when updating sound card driver NpapTEI-Crete 7/12/2007 4:14:03 PM I have a AMD 4200, with a Abit KN8 Ultra motherboard and I recently installed Vista on my computer. Immediately after I installed VISTA I activated my copy of VISTA (I'm using it at a Educational institute). The only problem I had with Vista was the RealTek AC'97 Audio codec was not installed nor recognised. I found a driver for VISTA from the RealTek Website 6243_Vista_APO.zip, that allowed the multimedia adaptor to be recognised. Immediately after installation, I received a message stating that my configuration has changed and I need to register my copy of VISTA again. I tried to but I get a message that my copy of VISTA is already being used, and prompts me to either buy a new one online, or type a new vista number now. How can I resolve this problem? I am a test user for migration from the XP to Vista and this is definetely a significant problem should we decide to migrate. Kind regards

Re: Activation problem when updating sound card driver "Andrew McLaren" <andrew[ at ]fakeaddress.com> 7/12/2007 4:40:03 PM Hi, Now that Windows Vista can detect your sound card, it thinks that the hardware has changed. Well, your hardware has changed :-) but it makes Vista think it is actually running on a whole new PC; not just the same PC with a new sound card. So, it is asking you to re-activate Windows. It sees that your "old" PC (ie without the sound card) was already activated, so it throws up the error message. It is easily fixed - you ring Microsoft and get an activation code, over the phone. Then you plug the activation code they give you into Vista, and you're activated. It usually takes 3 to 5 minutes. When you get the "already activated" error message, there should have been a link to the phone number to ring, for your region. If not, run this command at a command prompt "slui 4" - it will bring up the dialogue box with phone numbers. The algorithm Vista uses to detect whether it is running on the same PC, or has been copied to a new PC, is pretty complex and completely undocumented, publically. It takes into account various component serial numbers etc. Unfortunately it seems to be a bit over-sensitive sometimes; very minor hardware changes like adding a second hard disk, or, oh, installing a sound driver, makes it think it is running on a new PC. But other times, you can make big changes and Vista hardly notices. I hope they will refine the algorithm (or better, totally abandon it) in future releases. Hope this helps, -- Andrew McLaren amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au