Activation suddenly vanished.... nrms 6/9/2007 1:35:00 PM Been using my (expensive) Vista Utimate Full retail copy for 3 months, fully activated. Today, I startup to be informed that as a result of a recent hardware change, I must now RE-ACTIVATE. WTF?????? I HAVE MADE *NO* HARDWARE CHANGES WHATSOEVER. So what is going on? The only thing I changed recently was to update the Intel RAID Storage Driver (IASTOR.SYS instead of IASTORV.SYS). HELLO! MICROSOFT!! This is SOFTWARE NOT HARDWARE. This activation cr*p is beginning to p*ss me off....................... NigelS

Re: Activation suddenly vanished.... "Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS[ at ]hotmail.com> 6/9/2007 2:32:39 PM Updating the Raid drivers will do this (in some instances). After the upgrade and a subsequent reboot, the operating system detects the hard drive as being different (new). To the O/S - it is. Therefore the O/S thinks it is on a different computer and asks you to reactivate. The on-line activation will likely fail and you will have to use the phone in option. -- Regards, Richard Urban Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User (For email, remove the obvious from my address) "nrms" <nrms[ at ]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:AB6DDD4E-E2A6-47A5-8397-E0B65D178D36[ at ]microsoft.com... [Quoted Text] > Been using my (expensive) Vista Utimate Full retail copy for 3 months, > fully > activated. > > Today, I startup to be informed that as a result of a recent hardware > change, I must now RE-ACTIVATE. WTF?????? > > I HAVE MADE *NO* HARDWARE CHANGES WHATSOEVER. So what is going on? The > only > thing I changed recently was to update the Intel RAID Storage Driver > (IASTOR.SYS instead of IASTORV.SYS). HELLO! MICROSOFT!! This is SOFTWARE > NOT > HARDWARE. > > This activation cr*p is beginning to p*ss me off....................... > > NigelS >

Re: Activation suddenly vanished.... nrms 6/9/2007 3:46:00 PM Well I am now 100% positive that it was updating the RAID "SOFTWARE" driver, because I returned my system to a pre-update Ghost image, and it was still activated. I then reinstalled the Intel Raid driver and after reboot the activation was gone. Clearly this gives the lie to the MS$ claim that Vista was similar to XP in its activation "rules" - I NEVER once had to re-activate XP due to changes in software drivers (or even genuine hardware changes, come to that). I can understand the need for Vista to detect TRUE hardware changes; but it NEEDS to be KEYED to hardware ID's in a way that changing driver support does not trigger a re-activation event. My beef is this. The Raid software driver had to be updated because the one that shipped with Vista is (frankly) not fit for service. Many manufacturers are currently revising their hardware drivers on a regular basis. If I have to go through the hassle of convincing Microsoft that I am not a pirate every few weeks until the software base matures, then I will NOT be best pleased. As it happens I am advising my client base NOT to buy, install or upgrade to Vista for at least a year, until the software driver support matures. I have bought 3 Vista licenses for 3 PC's (2 OEM & 1 Full Retail; all Ultimate). For this I shelled out the US$ equivalent of nearly $1100 (as I live in rip off Britain); I *shouldn't* have to go through all this hassle. If Microsoft does not improve this situation with Vista SP1; my next OS will be Linux for sure. "Richard Urban" wrote: [Quoted Text] > Updating the Raid drivers will do this (in some instances). After the > upgrade and a subsequent reboot, the operating system detects the hard drive > as being different (new). To the O/S - it is.

Re: Activation suddenly vanished.... "Richard Urban" <richardurbanREMOVETHIS[ at ]hotmail.com> 6/9/2007 11:45:59 PM The activation is very similar. It is just that the lions share of determining validity has now been shifted to hard drive identification. -- Regards, Richard Urban Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User (For email, remove the obvious from my address) "nrms" <nrms[ at ]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:E46D880A-73E9-4004-A016-C92EF59ECF8E[ at ]microsoft.com... [Quoted Text] > Well I am now 100% positive that it was updating the RAID "SOFTWARE" > driver, > because I returned my system to a pre-update Ghost image, and it was still > activated. I then reinstalled the Intel Raid driver and after reboot the > activation was gone. > > Clearly this gives the lie to the MS$ claim that Vista was similar to XP > in > its activation "rules" - I NEVER once had to re-activate XP due to changes > in > software drivers (or even genuine hardware changes, come to that). I can > understand the need for Vista to detect TRUE hardware changes; but it > NEEDS > to be KEYED to hardware ID's in a way that changing driver support does > not > trigger a re-activation event. > > My beef is this. The Raid software driver had to be updated because the > one > that shipped with Vista is (frankly) not fit for service. Many > manufacturers > are currently revising their hardware drivers on a regular basis. If I > have > to go through the hassle of convincing Microsoft that I am not a pirate > every > few weeks until the software base matures, then I will NOT be best > pleased. > > As it happens I am advising my client base NOT to buy, install or upgrade > to > Vista for at least a year, until the software driver support matures. > > I have bought 3 Vista licenses for 3 PC's (2 OEM & 1 Full Retail; all > Ultimate). For this I shelled out the US$ equivalent of nearly $1100 (as I > live in rip off Britain); I *shouldn't* have to go through all this > hassle. > If Microsoft does not improve this situation with Vista SP1; my next OS > will > be Linux for sure. > > "Richard Urban" wrote: > >> Updating the Raid drivers will do this (in some instances). After the >> upgrade and a subsequent reboot, the operating system detects the hard >> drive >> as being different (new). To the O/S - it is. >

Re: Activation suddenly vanished.... "john" <john[ at ]msn.com> 6/13/2007 12:31:33 PM "nrms" <nrms[ at ]discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:AB6DDD4E-E2A6-47A5-8397-E0B65D178D36[ at ]microsoft.com... [Quoted Text] > Been using my (expensive) Vista Utimate Full retail copy for 3 months, > fully > activated. > > Today, I startup to be informed that as a result of a recent hardware > change, I must now RE-ACTIVATE. WTF?????? > > I HAVE MADE *NO* HARDWARE CHANGES WHATSOEVER. So what is going on? The > only > thing I changed recently was to update the Intel RAID Storage Driver > (IASTOR.SYS instead of IASTORV.SYS). HELLO! MICROSOFT!! This is SOFTWARE > NOT > HARDWARE. > > This activation cr*p is beginning to p*ss me off....................... > > NigelS > look at the bright side. you get to enjoy that warm-n-fuzzy feeling you get by doing your part to combat software piracy, by being forced at gunpoint to provide proof, over and over and over and over again, that you are not a thief. -- ======================================= "We will make our products work out of the box." - Steve Ballmer =======================================