Anyone else having problems with Vista product activation?

Hello,

I recieved my shiny new 6214w a week ago after reading the largely positive posts on this forum.

I had been waiting for Vista and ordered it on the 30th January and for the first three days I was really pleased with both the laptop and Vista..

It didn't last though

After three days Vista decided I needed to activate it but when I entered the key it errored and reckoned that the key was invalid!

I tried everything I could think of and ended up emailing Zepto support in Denmark on Sunday evening.

That was the start of an extremely frustrating week of phone calls to microsoft and emails to Zepto. There is definitely something wrong but neither will agree and the end result is that I still don't have a working laptop - it's now friday evening

Microsoft reckon that the product key is fine but that the installation was done incorrectly and Zepto reckon that the installation was fine but the product key supplied by Microsoft is wrong!

I don't want to point blame at anyone and indeed the Microsoft support lady seems to be getting as frustrated as me at her collegues. The guy that I am dealing with from Zepto is also very polite and seems to be chasing this up as a matter of priority.

So I was wondering if this is just me or if anyone else has had a similar problem with their pre-installed OEM version of Windows Vista Home Premium?

(Incidently, Vista in non-activated mode is a total lemon!)

Ta

 

Try this:

http://magicaljellybean.com/beta/

Let me know how it works out...

 

Thanks for the advice Spatialanomaly and to the other guy whos post vanished (what was that about!?)

Anyhow, it turns out there is no product key in the registry because it won't let me register it as it's invalid!

So, I gave in and spent yesterday re-installing Vista on my laptop and suprise, suprise the activation key worked first time...

Interestingly, the product id after re-installation is different to the one on the laptop that I recieved from Zepto which means that Microsoft were right and Zepto were wrong.

I'll be sending some emails tomorrow!

Thanks for your help

 

I'm glad to hear you got it sorted out, Severina. I understand how frustrating things like that can get.

 

I beleive your talking about the post I made, I deleted it after I posted it because I wanted to fact check something first. I was asking why you were speaking to Micrsoft when Zepto supplied you your laptop.

I bascially was informing you that under The Sale of Goods Act 1979, the retailer should be your only port of call for problems or faults with your purchase. Calling Microsoft can be expensive, and technically you are not a customer for them. It is Zepto that supplied you the Vista and as such falls under their responsibility to rectify your problems at their expense.

I was fact checking with my university tutor today, since Zepto is in Denmark the Sales of Good Act wont apply as it is a British Law governing only British retailers. Zepto would not be liable to that law, which is why I chose to delete the post.

I'm glad you got it all sorted Severina, but dont be too harsh on Zepto, It can be very hard to rectify problems on computers through emails and phone calls. And Software problems are the worst kind to identify, not to mention Vista is a new Operating System, a bad install of Windows XP would be a little less forgiveable.