Microsoft fixes the Win10 activation problem

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My version 1809 test machine was throwing the Activation Error I talked about this morning. I followed the updated troubleshooting steps posted by Joã
[See the full post at: Microsoft fixes the Win10 activation problem]

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Elly, Mr. Natural, PhotM

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But are there any side effects? Is there a risk on damaged system files, broken software etc? In other words: what is wisdom? Reinstall or for example restore an earlier made image? Or is it all ok and no problem?

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Every indication I have is that there’s no problem, nothing changed. It’s just that MS gave everybody a heart attack for 12 hours – and instructed some people to mess up their machines.

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Elly, PhotM

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Ok, good to know. Will leave it as it is then! To be honest, today (yesterday by now) didn’t see any warning or so. Maybe I escaped, don’t know if ALL users were affected.
At the other hand: (of course) I didn’t check the license status of my Win 10 Pro. But I assume if it would have been wrong, I would have been notified…

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I have Windows 7 (not 10, as discussed in the link he has provided) so am not entirely clear as to what Woody is saying and how it applies to my case.

My one concern here is to know if the activation bug has been fixed for Win 7 as well or, at least, if MS has sent notice around that it has been fixed. As a precaution, I have been keeping my PC off the Internet and following events with my Mac.

So: Is it now OK to connect back to the Internet? Particularly for those that, like me, have not been affected yet. Do those like me need to do anything especial ourselves?

Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).

MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
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macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV

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The only activation problem I saw reported was for Win10 Pro. There was a similar – but not identical – reporter for Server.

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OscarCP

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My Window 10 is broken after this. Nothing is working. Thanks MS for wasting my time and now need to reinstall OS from scratch and hope my backup hard drive has most of my recent files. May be will lose only a few weeks of data…..

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I have Win 10 Pro and never did have this problem. My computer said it was activated all day long, and I was online all day. Just lucky I guess. I paid the $100 to upgrade to Pro about 2 years ago.

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News of this issue is all over the Internet today. Pro keys are being reverted to Home keys. Microsoft says that they have an issue with their Activation Server and that they expect to have the issue resolved “within two business days”. The issue is bad bad for many people who don’t know what to do.

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I had the problem this morning. Activation Troubleshooter didn’t work twice (once by me, once remote by M$ Support. They were going to send it up to Tier 2 Support. Problem existed with on-screen warning until about 5 minutes ago, when it reverted to Activated with no action on my part.

Zig

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Running W10.1809 along with W7 and W8.1 on my multi-boot test setup.  Only the W10 installation (a “free” W7 PRO OEM license “upgrade”) was seen to have been affected by the activation server issue throughout the day.  It just returned to normal by itself following a late-day reboot.  No “troubleshooting” required and no residual ill effects have been noted so far.

Considering the initial MS response suggesting that it might take several days to pin down and repair their activation server issue, I suppose they deserve some credit for the speedy recovery from their own stupidity.  Or is that overly generous? :^)

Asus ROG Maximus XI Code board; Intel i9-9900K CPU; 32 GB DDR4-3600 RAM; Nvidia GTX1080 GPU; 2x512 GB Samsung 970 Pro M.2 NVMe; 2x2 TB Samsung 860 Pro SSDs; Windows 10.1809; Linux Mint 19.1; Terabyte Backup & Recovery

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The sceptic in me after the 3 years of the “Roller Coaster ride” that is Win 10 makes me wonder if this is going to be another sporadic ongoing problem. I seem to recall 2001-2 when XP SP1 came out it managed to nix a bunch of purloined keys from M$, I think they came out with WGA in the wake of that debacle, or was that before? Ah well slept since, any ways point of this little thing is really to assure folks don’t panic if this happens again, certainly don’t part with any Money because everything does work that needs to work, just the appearance options and nag messages and the desktop message. It may look ugly but hey its functional. I messed around with Win10 Education for a while when the update control of Win10 Pro wasn’t as reliable as it is now as a way of stymieing updates and you could run it for up to 6 months or more without Activation, Win7 users will probably attest if you don’t do anything Win7 is unusable after a Month. Chris Hoffman at HTG has an interesting article about this: https://www.howtogeek.com/244678/you-dont-need-a-product-key-to-install-and-use-windows-10/
I noticed reading round on the Web that one or two folks panicked and in one instance paid M$ twice more for a Pro activation on top of the Original, I wouldn’t have bothered donating to the coffers of M$ again they’re having trouble closing the lid as it is now
So if it does happen again don’t worry, but if you are running a “dodgy or shady” copy, well errrm better start saving those Pennies now lol

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anonymous wrote:

My Window 10 is broken after this. Nothing is working. Thanks MS for wasting my time and now need to reinstall OS from scratch and hope my backup hard drive has most of my recent files. May be will lose only a few weeks of data…..

While it won’t help this time, a backup drive, a copy of Macrium Reflect, and the Macrium Rescue CD can restore your complete system in less than an hour.    I use the paid version and have it set to run every night.  Last year my SSD boot drive failed without warning.  Installed a new drive, booted from the rescue CD, then selected the disk image that I wanted to restore.  30 minutes later I was logged in just as if nothing ever happened.

 

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We know it was some sort of activation server error. But will Microsoft ever explain the issue in detail is probably something we won’t get. Given that the transparency on 1809 is completely gone dark.

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Microfix, BobbyB

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… so, apparently this has been happening intermittently even after Microsoft claimed to have fixed it. Might be less often, but the only case I’ve run into so far was only after the supposed fix.

Well, depending on how Microsoft has implemented this, could be that the fix just hadn’t made it quite everywhere yet.

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My pc at work was prompting me for activation this morning. So I did what was mentioned, ran the troubleshooter on windows activation and it did indeed fix the issue. Reactivated and properly licensed for W10 pro. As mentioned, took about 5 seconds.

Red Ruffnsore

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My PC was showing the “not activated” watermark.  when I ran the troubleshooter, it told me that my Win 10 Pro license was really for Win 10 Home.  Then I noticed the activation servers seemed to go down for several hours.  When they came back up, things were fixed.  This is one of those examples where DRM does nothing but cause problems for users.

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My v1709 was reporting that it was not activated today at 15:00 when I booted. Running the troubleshooter made the watermark go away and the error appears to be resolved.

I didn’t memorize my previous activation key, but I’d almost swear this one is different.

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dph853 wrote:

My v1709 was reporting that it was not activated today at 15:00 when I booted. Running the troubleshooter made the watermark go away and the error appears to be resolved. I didn’t memorize my previous activation key, but I’d almost swear this one is different.

I decided to emphasize your last sentence. Is anybody else seeing this? Recall that I half jokingly posted that perhaps Microsoft’s activation server had been hacked. My post didn’t come across as a joke since I was half serious about the possibility.

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No apparent activation problems on either of my two Surface tablets (pro 3/4) yet. Maybe ‘cuz they have original MS OS keys. The desktop that lost it’s sense of identity two days ago originally had an OEM copy of Win7 installed and took part in the “free” Win10 upgrade offer – it costs nothing the speculate and draw wild unsubstantiated conclusions…

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geekdom

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dph853 wrote:

The desktop that lost it’s sense of identity two days ago originally had an OEM copy of Win7 installed and took part in the “free” Win10 upgrade offer – it costs nothing the speculate and draw wild unsubstantiated conclusions…

Thanks for the information.

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