Windows 10 Activation Problems Continue, Microsoft Tells Everyone...

labeeman said:

Source

First... Softpedia... they're idiots.

Second, nearly every case of failed activation I've seen can be accounted for by one of a few cases.

1) Clean install first - obviously, this won't work

2) Did not wait for upgrade to be activated before clean installing

3) Upgrade first, then attempting to clean install with wrong edition (Pro media from a Home activation, for instance). Many people mistakenly create the wrong media, then use that same wrong media over and over and get frustrated that its not working.

4) Upgraded first (or not), then used some key finding utility to find the key, then attempting to use this key when installing clean - This shouldn't even accept the key, but apparently it does accept it for some people, then activation fails usually with blocked key msg.

5) activation server overload. This just takes time to activate, usually after a clean install after first upgrading. You can attempt to use slmgr /ato to force re-activation and eventually activation will succeed.

6) Some people ended up with networking that doesn't work correctly after the upgrade, this prevents activation as well. So their original upgrade did not activate before they started a clean install. This is really an extension of #2.

Activation is something that shouldn't vary from system to system, it can only fail for one of a few reasons. If you're doing a clean install generally speaking, it means you either didn't originally get your system upgraded, or you have clean installed with the wrong media, or the servers are just failing.

My w10 upgrading went through ok ... and when I rolled back to w8 ..it activated itself ...

Dang, it took my Windows 7 activation no problem! It was activated the moment I was done upgrading.

I had reserved an activation, and I was supposed to wait for the installer to be loaded into my system. But they were taking way too long to get it to me so I found an untouched ISO image and used that. Looks like updates are activating correctly but not clean installs.

XweAponX said:

Dang, it took my Windows 7 activation no problem! It was activated the moment I was done upgrading.

I had reserved an activation, and I was supposed to wait for the installer to be loaded into my system. But they were taking way too long to get it to me so I found an untouched ISO image and used that. Looks like updates are activating correctly but not clean installs.

Upgrade, then clean reinstall. Clean install without upgrading first will not activate.

I upgraded a purchased retail copy of Windows 8.1 through the app last night and it still hasn't activated. I am getting the 0xC004C003 error message and am waitng for awhile per everything I am reading online. It's a little frustrating but not surprising because of the sheer number of people upgrading.

chucksim1 said:

I upgraded a purchased retail copy of Windows 8.1 through the app last night and it still hasn't activated. I am getting the 0xC004C003 error message and am waitng for awhile per everything I am reading online. It's a little frustrating but not surprising because of the sheer number of people upgrading.

If you are still using the upgraded version (did not clean install) then something is wrong. It should be activated almost immediately, and have never heard of anyone getting that error with an upgrade, unless they are using a pirated key or something like that.

Sorry to ask what is probably a silly question, but just how do you get the software to do a clean install on an existing system, and what exactly do do you men by a clean install?

Hwalker1 said:

Sorry to ask what is probably a silly question, but just how do you get the software to do a clean install on an existing system, and what exactly do do you men by a clean install?

If you download the install CD from Microsoft, you can install the OS and wipe everything that's on the disk. This is a "clean install" because it deletes everything.

Mystere said:

If you are still using the upgraded version (did not clean install) then something is wrong. It should be activated almost immediately, and have never heard of anyone getting that error with an upgrade, unless they are using a pirated key or something like that.

I don't see how it could be pirated as this is a retail copy I purchased from best buy. It is installed on a Dell 530s that originally came with XP, but the system I am upgrading is legal.