Jose

This is really a bizarre situation. I run Vista Business in a Dell Precision
workstation with a 3.75 mz processor and 4 mb memory. Six months ago, I
upgraded the original XP to Vista in a perfectly legal transaction (although
I have regretted doing the upgrade ever since). Vista had a series of
operational problems, the worst of which was to have the taskbar freeze every
time I opened Windows Explorer.

2 days ago, trying to fix the problem (for the hundredth time) I followed
the suggestion in a newsgroup to open System Configuration, set it to
Diagnostic Startup, and reboot. The idea was to see if the taskbar still
froze while the computer ran in this mode. I did it, and the taskbar did not
freeze.

I shut down the computer for the day. This morning, when I rebooted, I was
faced with a black screen, a message that said my version of VISTA was not
genuine and asked if I wanted to register or buy a new license.

I tried to 1) reenter the key, 2) re-register, 3) run VISTA under reduced
capability, etc. In all cases I got the same message:
"Windows Activation Error"
A problem occurred when Windows tried to activate
Error code 0x8007000D
The Data is Invalid"

In desperation, I tried to restart in Safe Mode. After several failures I
managed to make it run in safe mode. I got rid of the antivirus and any other
profgram that could prevent registration and I ran again the System
Configuration to set it to Normal Startup. And I rebooted.

The system started, but its operation is really flawed:
1. There is a message in the lower right corner that says " Windos Vista,
Build 6000, This copy of Windows is not genuine.
2. I cannot print or use Windows Media Player
3. Internet explorer is very sluggish and I cannot run anything that
requires scripts. In fact I could not open this newsgroup and read messages.
4. I cannot see printers in the network, althought I can access files in
other computers in the network
5. Vista runs much slower than before (which makes my 3.7 mz processor feel
like an ancient 486)

I went through the registration process again. This time it went through,
but the "not genuine" message still shows on the screen.

I used Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder to view the registration key stored in
the system It is there and it is correct.

Is there anything else I can do to salvage this Vista installation?
otherwise I will swallow hard and reinstall Windows XP. Next time, I will
think very hard before updating any other computer to Vista.

Any help will be appreciated

Jose