How to fix an activation gone bad

How to fix an activation gone bad

-          troubleshooting retail installations

Why does a Windows Activation Fail?

1.     The most common reason could be a simple typo, be careful of I, l,0, O yes that is I as India and l as in London and 0 as in Zero and O as in Oreo. This is also the easiest issue to be resolved as you just wipe everything and double check every character as you enter it.

2.     Very poor network connectivity. This is usually a major cause of these issues.

3.     Update your device, most activation issues are resolved just by doing a Windows Update.

4.     If your key is a retail key and it has already been activated on a machine not necessarily by you. This would mean tracing who used it or buying another key but if it was a sealed pack contact Microsoft for help with all proof of purchase documents ready.

5.     If you have a volume key and you have installed it and activated in more than the number of allowed activations your current activation will fail.

6.     Since post activation validation of key continues you might find that a previously activated machine has now started showing errors in activation, this is also due to public exposure or compromising the key online with multiple activations invalidating all the installs.

7.     If you a corporate and using a Key Management Service [KMS] or Active Directory Activation it could be due to various reasons like DNS errors or due to the requisite services not running on both the machines.

8.     If you are reinstalling and there has been major hardware changes. [Watch out for an article on that coming soon]

9.     You installed the Operating system and then you have moved the hard disk to another machine.

10. Cloning a hard disk real/virtual without following the proper procedure for doing so using third party software.

Resolving these issues:

1.     Check connectivity

2.     Check DNS configuration

3.     Do a Windows Update

4.     Restart the machine

5.     Try the built in Windows Activation Troubleshooter

6.     When all else fails as a genuine customer of Microsoft call their tech support do not worry all activation based queries are free and high priority.

The next article will focus on how hardware changes affect your Windows activation status.