Why must I call Microsoft?

[wrldwzrd89]

Grr... my virtual machine died on me, and I had to reinstall the thing. When I tried to reactivate Windows, I was told that the number of allowed activations for this copy had been exceeded. What gives? It's a genuine, retail copy of Windows. Why can't I activate the darn thing over the Internet without calling Microsoft support and getting a confirmation number (which worked perfectly, and got me running again)?

 

[aristobrat]

Because to the Activation Wizard, it looked like you were activating your serial number on another machine, which could be piracy.

 

[calculus]

Welcome to the world of Windows...

 

[wrldwzrd89]

Because to the Activation Wizard, it looked like you were activating your serial number on another machine, which could be piracy.

Thank you. That makes sense... but it's highly annoying nevertheless. I wonder if setting up a Boot Camp partition would make the situation any better should I ever have to reinstall. (I know I'm going to have to call Microsoft again to get the thing activated, but what I wonder is what happens the time after that, which will hopefully never come.)

 

[mkrishnan]

I think the boot camp partition would help... the way I understand it, the activation scheme looks for a signature of the hard disk / partition on which Windows lives. When you make a new disk image, you get a new signature. But if you reformat a bootcamp partition, I think it shouldn't be an issue. Although, if you change the partition scheme, you'd most likely end up back with the same problem.

In perspective, I believe that if you had an OEM Windows PC and you replaced the hard drive with a new one, and then re-installed Windows, you'd end up with the same problem.