Why does use of a COA product key always require phone activation?

alphanumeric said:

You asked why you have to do a phone activation with the COA sticker yes. All I said was with windows 8 and 10 you don't have too, times have changed. It doesn't matter what media you use, it will read the embedded key. I was making conversation on the topic. That's all. With Windows 7 you have a choice, use the Branded OEM media and no need for a phone activation. You do not need to use the key COA sticker if you use the OEM branded install media. Use regular media and your doing a phone activation. The media you use with Windows 7 does matter. Your right, these days its recovery media which limits what you can do. You can get install media that will let you clean install Windows 7, custom if you want, and activate with OEM-SLP activation. I've done it with Windows XP and Windows 7. The custom OEM media has a $OEM$ folder and files in the sources folder. I manually add one to all my PC's to add the custom OEM info. Mine won't do the OEM-SLP because those files aren't there, or needed for Windows 8 and 10. I can do any other customization though.

Except I didn't get OEM branded media. But I don't care about that. That has nothing to do with the question anyway. I am not trying to avoid the phone call. I don't care about that. Like I said, this is not an issue, it is just a question about what info is in the installation ID that can't be transmitted automatically and therefore requires all COA installations to be activated only by phone. I know why Microsoft started requiring COA keys to be activated by phone. I am just curious about the mechanics.

alphanumeric said:

Yeah, PC's don't ship with the physical media like they did in the past. My fathers Dell laptop that shipped with XP came with 3 or 4 CD's for reinstalling XP. Now you get nothing but a utility to make recovery media. I don't know if you'll ever get an answer to your question though. Even if you do, Microsoft isn't likely to change it at this point, not for Windows 7 anyway. I don't know what's in the installation ID.

Like most everybody else I upgraded from 7 on my Dell XPS 8500 and Dell Latitude E6520. I long ago got in the habit of buying FPP copies and replacing the OEM editions so I could move licenses (I used to assemble my own computers too). I was running standalone licenses on both Dells and it occurred to me that I should be able to repartition and install the original editions using the either the standalone licenses or the COA keys. After all I was doubly licensed and the upgrade would only consume one.

My first attempt was to install using my standalone keys, but the activation wizard rejected the standalone product keys as "already in use," so I knew which licenses were bound to the Windows 10 upgrades.

It turned out that the COA keys were fine, but the activation wizard always said "Your product key requires activation by phone" and provided the metalink to start the phone activation wizard. It turns out to be unlike using the phone activation wizard in transfer or too-frequent-activation scenarios. The automated agent never asks any questions. The only information I provided was the installation ID. Then the agent verified something and just gives the activation string.

So I am curious about what is the point of that exercise? What info did I give in the installation ID that made one bit of difference and why couldn't that be collected and verified in an automated online activation?

And why would an automated agent take my word for anything anyway? :)