I’ve blogged about Microsoft Telephone Action before, but now I’m off on a rant….
Click ‘Continue Reading’ for the wall-of-text!
To start, we need to get a little background out of the way. When you buy a retail copy of Windows, you get a Retail disk with a Retail key. You put the key in and life is usually good – Windows activates online and you’re done. Occasionally, maybe due to a hardware change, Windows refuses to activate online and instead makes you call in. You follow the steps, punch in the numbers, and you’re done. Pretty simple.
However, when it comes to a computer with Windows pre-installed by a major manufacturer, things are a little different.
You see, to make things easier for the average user, Microsoft added a feature called ‘System Locked Preinstallation‘, or ‘SLP’. To summarize the linked Wikipedia article, Microsoft provides Manufactures with a set of OEM Product Keys. The manufacturer then gives you these keys on the COA affixed to your computer and an installation disk with a generic Product Key pre-entered. When you do the install, Windows checks the Product Key, and if it finds an OEM SLP key, it looks for a Digital Certificate that the manufacturer embedded in the BIOS. When it finds the cert, it ‘activates’ without going online.
The problem I have is that I rarely (read: never) use the manufacturer-provided Windows installation disk, mainly to avoid the crap they put on them (‘free’ trials of Norton Antivirus, crapware, etc…). As such, with Windows XP I’d use a generic System Builder OEM disk, or with Windows Vista/7, just a generic Retail disk (with Windows Vista, all the SKUs are on one disk, and Windows automatically detects which edition to install based on your product key. Windows 7 disks also have almost all SKUs present, but you need to edit/delete a file first to access that feature).
When using a generic disk, the SLP process no longer applies, and you have to put in the Product Key that is on the COA attached to your computer. Although the key will enter fine, it won’t activate online. This is because although it’s a valid OEM key, it’s technically never supposed to be used, as the OEM-provided installation disk will use a different, generic key. As such, you need to call in to Microsoft’s Product Activation line in order to activate the key on your COA.
Now comes the fun part. I recently received a bunch of new Dell systems and went through the telephone activation process as usual. Everything worked perfectly. Then today, I had to re-install Windows Vista Business on a year-old laptop. After the installation, I put in the product key and went to the telephone activation line. After punching in the verification numbers, I heard this:
We’re sorry, but we were unable to validate your installation ID. Please hold while we transfer you to a representative.
So, I waited on hold for a few minutes was greeted with the following:
Agent: Thank you for contacting the Microsoft Telephone Activation department. Can I start with the first block of numbers on the activation screen?
Me: Yes, they’re XXXXXX.
Agent: Okay, is the second block YYYYYY?
Me: Yes.
Agent: Perfect. And what product are you trying to activate?
Me: Windows Vista Business Edition.
Agent: Okay. Please enter the following numbers in to the activation screen. <insert numbers here>
Me: Okay, it activated.
Agent: Thank you!
What the hell? He used the numbers I entered in to the automated part of the phone system, so I didn’t type them wrong, and he didn’t ask me the usual questions (“How many computers is this installed on, et al…”), so why did the automated activation fail? Have they changed the process? Am I going to have to go through this every time? Should I just say ‘screw it’ and only order VLK product keys instead and tell the OEMs to not bother with Windows anymore?
Find out the answer to these questions and more…well, probably never. [/end rant]
Comments (0)