sudden demand for activation  

zivshosh said:

indeed after upgrading to 1809 the problem was solved...

It does sound like the activation server connection problem was something at your end. I suspect that an in-place repair upgrade of 1803 would also have fixed the issues. Either way, glad to hear everything is working normally now.

maybe but I have scars from the update yesterday that caused the sudden demand for activation.
I saw that it was not only my problem and it is regarded as MS problem so I decided to go all the way.
Now that the problem is solved how do I delete windows.old (I certainly don't want to go back)?
Even after taking ownership windows doesn't let me do it and there must be an easy way to do it.
thank you

I usually run Disk Clean up and click the 'clean up system files' button. You should see 'Previous Windows installation(s)' there.

Delete Windows.old Folder in Windows 10 | Tutorials

Thank you Bree
of course it worked!