Vista - Home Premium Activation Problem

Installed upgrade to Vista Home Premium on 1 Feb 07. I activated the product
when I first installed. Now I am recieving messages to activate windows,
when I do that it replies back with product key already used. I cannot
figure out what this means. I am afraid to call or e-mail MSFT fearing
something else will fail in the next 90 days and I won't have tech support
(great customer service). The upgrade went rather smoothe, the only problem
I ran into was after a couple days I started my computer and it changed drive
designation. C drive turned into E drive ect. Sometimes it does that, C is
actually on the raid controller and it tries to boot the others first.
Anyway, I had to disconnect the other drives and boot from originial HD that
vista was installed on. When I did that it asked me to insert the CD ROM and
I did. All was working well until last night 7 Feb 07. Can anyone help?

"yodetdy" wrote:

> Installed upgrade to Vista Home Premium on 1 Feb 07. I activated the product
> when I first installed. Now I am recieving messages to activate windows,
> when I do that it replies back with product key already used. I cannot
> figure out what this means. I am afraid to call or e-mail MSFT fearing
> something else will fail in the next 90 days and I won't have tech support
> (great customer service). The upgrade went rather smoothe, the only problem
> I ran into was after a couple days I started my computer and it changed drive
> designation. C drive turned into E drive ect. Sometimes it does that, C is
> actually on the raid controller and it tries to boot the others first.
> Anyway, I had to disconnect the other drives and boot from originial HD that
> vista was installed on. When I did that it asked me to insert the CD ROM and
> I did. All was working well until last night 7 Feb 07. Can anyone help?

WOW! I thought Windows ME was bad. I went through the same problems with
Home Premium trying to get it to activate. It was the worst install process
I've ever seen. 5 years, millions of $$, thousands of programmer and beta
testing hours and THIS is the best they can do?

"yodetdy" wrote:

> Installed upgrade to Vista Home Premium on 1 Feb 07. I activated the product
> when I first installed. Now I am recieving messages to activate windows,
> when I do that it replies back with product key already used. I cannot
> figure out what this means. I am afraid to call or e-mail MSFT fearing
> something else will fail in the next 90 days and I won't have tech support
> (great customer service). The upgrade went rather smoothe, the only problem
> I ran into was after a couple days I started my computer and it changed drive
> designation. C drive turned into E drive ect. Sometimes it does that, C is
> actually on the raid controller and it tries to boot the others first.
> Anyway, I had to disconnect the other drives and boot from originial HD that
> vista was installed on. When I did that it asked me to insert the CD ROM and
> I did. All was working well until last night 7 Feb 07. Can anyone help?

Have you guys downloaded ALL the Vista Updates first BEFORE using your PC?
See update details below:

Update for Windows Vista (KB931573)

Installation date: ‎07/‎02/‎2007 18:56

Installation status: Successful

Update type: Recommended

Install this update to resolve an issue where you may be prompted to
activate a pre-installed copy of Windows Vista. After you install this item,
you may have to restart your computer.

More information:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=82159

More information:
http://support.microsoft.com






"student1" wrote:

> WOW! I thought Windows ME was bad. I went through the same problems with
> Home Premium trying to get it to activate. It was the worst install process
> I've ever seen. 5 years, millions of $$, thousands of programmer and beta
> testing hours and THIS is the best they can do?
>
> "yodetdy" wrote:
>
> > Installed upgrade to Vista Home Premium on 1 Feb 07. I activated the product
> > when I first installed. Now I am recieving messages to activate windows,
> > when I do that it replies back with product key already used. I cannot
> > figure out what this means. I am afraid to call or e-mail MSFT fearing
> > something else will fail in the next 90 days and I won't have tech support
> > (great customer service). The upgrade went rather smoothe, the only problem
> > I ran into was after a couple days I started my computer and it changed drive
> > designation. C drive turned into E drive ect. Sometimes it does that, C is
> > actually on the raid controller and it tries to boot the others first.
> > Anyway, I had to disconnect the other drives and boot from originial HD that
> > vista was installed on. When I did that it asked me to insert the CD ROM and
> > I did. All was working well until last night 7 Feb 07. Can anyone help?

To all thanks for the reply, I finally got it figured out. I called MS at
the number they gave me for automated validation over the phone. When I
entered the numbers on the phone it did send an error but then I talked to a
person. I read him the numbers that windows generates and he gave me some
numbers to enter into the validation. I am sure that the MB changing the
drive letters had something to do with it. I also found out that changing
some drivers will also cause this. I look forward to many re-validations
since I am an upgrade nut. I would not be suprised if I need to do it again
with a new bios upgrade. I think that MS needs to take a step back on this
copyright worry and evaluate the custumer service level. I have to be honest
and say I was worried that I would not be able to validate the program after
spending 160 dollars on this OS. While I am this subject I hope that MS is
thinking about the upgrade process for vista a little more than they did for
XP. I think that issuing another DVD that includes all the updates once a
year for a nominal price would decrease the storage and bandwidth required to
keep it in the update area for all to download. For example I bout XP early
on just like I did Vista. In about a year or so XP came out with second
edition. I thank them for giveing it to us for free, but it was such a pain
to reload windows and get all the updates. I wish I could have got a 15.00
DVD with the OS and updates already on it. Anyway, I believe it would be
cost effective to both the customer and to microsoft.

Mike

"yodetdy" wrote:

> Installed upgrade to Vista Home Premium on 1 Feb 07. I activated the product
> when I first installed. Now I am recieving messages to activate windows,
> when I do that it replies back with product key already used. I cannot
> figure out what this means. I am afraid to call or e-mail MSFT fearing
> something else will fail in the next 90 days and I won't have tech support
> (great customer service). The upgrade went rather smoothe, the only problem
> I ran into was after a couple days I started my computer and it changed drive
> designation. C drive turned into E drive ect. Sometimes it does that, C is
> actually on the raid controller and it tries to boot the others first.
> Anyway, I had to disconnect the other drives and boot from originial HD that
> vista was installed on. When I did that it asked me to insert the CD ROM and
> I did. All was working well until last night 7 Feb 07. Can anyone help?