05 March 2007
Vista Activation Problems
A warning to all people using or considering Vista.
There appears to be some problems with Windows Genuine Advantage that causes Vista to have to be reactivated after installing or running some applications. In the case of this person it was the game 9Dragons.
After a few minutes of playing the game a window popped up stating that they system had been changed and needed to be reactivated. During the process the system was completely deactivated and if it wasn't reactivated would have stopped working within 3 days. The person now cannot play this game in the future for fear of the same thing happening.
The hope is that this did not use one of the free activations that Windows offers for Vista, but in reality it probably has. Such things like this can cost people a lot of money if Microsoft decides to not allow people to gain more reactivations after using all of their options in such situations. Extorting money from users comes to mind in this case. It could also lead people who had previously bought a legitimate copy of Vista to crack their software to avoid paying more because of faults in WGA. These people could later face further problems if MS decided to go on a piracy 'witchhunt'.
There appears to be some problems with Windows Genuine Advantage that causes Vista to have to be reactivated after installing or running some applications. In the case of this person it was the game 9Dragons.
After a few minutes of playing the game a window popped up stating that they system had been changed and needed to be reactivated. During the process the system was completely deactivated and if it wasn't reactivated would have stopped working within 3 days. The person now cannot play this game in the future for fear of the same thing happening.
The hope is that this did not use one of the free activations that Windows offers for Vista, but in reality it probably has. Such things like this can cost people a lot of money if Microsoft decides to not allow people to gain more reactivations after using all of their options in such situations. Extorting money from users comes to mind in this case. It could also lead people who had previously bought a legitimate copy of Vista to crack their software to avoid paying more because of faults in WGA. These people could later face further problems if MS decided to go on a piracy 'witchhunt'.
Labels: activation, microsoft, os, vista, wga, windows
