you can now officially validate your windows 7

As usual Microsoft's attempt at anti-piracy interferes with a genuine windows 7 installation. Last night I installed the new anti-piracy update (against my gut feeling) along with a few other updates. I restarted windows and what do you know black screen with "please activate your copy of windows". I proceeded to press "ok" to that warning and then what do you know windows re-activated itself and I did nothing, quite strange!

Next thing that went wrong after this update was that I could no longer minimize or maximize windows or close them. I essentially had to use task manager to close programs since I couldn't close them any other way!! I tried to access the system management tools to investigate the logs and what do you know some unknown windows error was stopping me from accessing the management tools so I couldn't even check the logs. I removed the updates but that was no luck.

Luckily for me I had a complete system image from November when I had installed windows 7 and I used that to re-install a fresh copy of windows (I have system restore disabled). Obviously now that I have this new installation I am not touching any of those updates that were released yesterday since I don't know which one caused my installation to freak out.

At work I am also hiding these updates for the time being since I cannot afford for this nonsense to happen on production servers or workstations.

 

a) i don't really believe you, but it can happen

b) it can't EVER be an issue at work, as those installations use a completely different activation routine. but you should know that, if you're the one doing that stuff.

 

What is there not to believe this very same thing has been documented for years now as happening to legitimate users. I used my previous system image with the very same key to restore windows and the key is giving me no problems now. This is not the only time this occurred; a few months ago I restarted windows and my copy was deactivated out of the blue and I had to re-enter my product key, I never knew why this occurred either. The only difference now as I said before is that after this update was installed I got the black screen with "please activate this copy of windows" I pressed "ok" and magically windows was activated without any further input from me something has to be wrong there...

As for work most of the workstations are Dells which probably (knock on wood) won't be bothered by this but the servers use keys (Microsoft eopen or whatever it is called now) which were entered. I never have the servers set to download updates automatically for this very same reason I always manually check every patch Tuesday since I cannot take the risk of anything going wrong on production servers.

The sad thing about this is that most pirates won't be affected by this update which was designed to catch them. IMO Microsoft needs to re-evaluate its activation process since this genuine advantage stuff isn't foolproof.

 

This looks like this is going to be messier than what MS has thought....:S

 

it's typical that days after tons of people pop up showing how it failed on them but most can't prove the legitness of it. you sound legit, but still.

and no, it's not a common problem. it happens for some, few persons out of millions of customers. common sense tells you that this is actually VERY GOOD. but oh no, it's microsoft, lets bash them.

no server will stop working because of it, just as your windows didn't stop working because of it. and servers should always be manual, just for testing.

i know quite some pirates that got caught around here. so it works.

 

Actually you should bash Microsoft over this since they should get their software validation checks to actually be foolproof. IMO any time more than 0.01% of the overall genuine windows users are deactivated with this validation nonsense that number is too high. Trust me it is annoying, I once had a HP OEM computer at work deactivated by WGA and it took me half an hour of manually trying to activate to actually get it to validate and this was using the version of XP that came from the factory go figure...

Also I don't know if folks who installed that update know this but it will phone home to Microsoft every 90 days to report on the activation status. Now I don't trust that either, even though they claim no identifying information is sent.

As for the servers well they are virtual machines which I export every few months and backup so if any silliness happens there I could easily delete and re import the backup virtual machine.

Anyway my windows 7 is all back to normal now so I guess I have nothing further to complain about.

 

actually i am told by a ms rep they are getting NUMEROUS calls about this. even if you are running gdata for your antivirus you will come up non genuine in some cases and they blame gdata.

 

Still haven't gotten this update yet.

Does anyone know if you still get the update if you did the one online a little while ago?

I did the one online when it came out, and wasn't to impressed (won't start another argument over that though).


And does the online one keep checking activation every 90 days? Or is that only the Windows Update?

 

no if you did the original one its the same as this one is, you will not see it in win updates

and yes if you look this created 2 tasks that will re validate your system every 90 days.

 

Two task's as in two running the the Task Manager?

What are the names?

 

I told you this was going to be a problem. Some previous experiences I had with Vista seem to be happening all over again.

Seriously MS. We paid for our product. Leave us alone.

 

look under microsoft, windows, then find windows activation technologies you will see them

 

1000% agreed i had issues all the way back to xp and i deal with customers every day who have had issues with vista and now already 5 people yes 5 this week so far with oem installed win7 direct from the oem (dell, hp, and toshiba so far) who are "non genuine"

 

Well, I found the update. Was installed like any normal update. I got the update through the Web Activation, not the Windows Update.

And yes, I DID install this update, and activated it fine.

I did delete the update (I am NO way advocating piracy, so please don't see it that way. Mod's are very welcome to remove this post if saying this is against Forum Rules).

So none-the-less, I got rid of it, and the update came into my Windows Update box like normal, so I just hid it. Now I guess I have to wait 90 days or maybe sooner to see if I still have it.

 

Why would this post be against the rules? For starters if anything this is against the law for MS to do. The entire 90 day reactivation bit I know for a fact IS against the law in the EU. MS tried a stunt like this with Vista, only then to put out another update permanently deactivating the genuine advantage crap in Vista for OEM copies due to TONS of false positives like this is already doing to people. Just go to the MS forums and there are already dozens of threads from people who are no longer "genuine". It's BS. Period.

 

Not the post, I was mentioning my post (unless that's what you meant, haha).

But I didn't know if posting that I had uninstalled it would be against the Forum Rules.

 

Not at all! Uninstalling an update is your perogitive. It's your OS and your computer. Now if you came out and said you had a pirated copy or something, than yeah that's against the rules lol.

 

I went ahead and installed the update yesterday because theoretically I shouldn't have anything to worry about. So far, so good, no activation message popped up.

 

i installed this from the web link posted earlier. it passed fine. in late December i intalled W7 and activated it was genuine (sent from OEM ugrade). I validated again when installing optional software. The latest as i installed WAT and let it validate. Microsoft has verified at LEAST 3 times since dec 09 my windows are valid and belong on this machine. At that point i decided i do NOT want or need it to keep phoning home every 90 days. This only leaves a door open for trouble i removed update KB971033 . After i removed it shortly later the action center thing with a white flag said one issue was detected and it had to run system maintence. It found some _unknown_ problem and said a solution would be in the action center when one was found. I rebooted and no more weird stuff happened .

 

I kept checking the Windows update and I have yet to see signs of the KB971033 update.

Nothing on my end for the past 2 days now.

 

Did you run the online one?

I did the online activation, and it installed it without me knowing, so I never saw the update.

If you did, it's under your "Recent Update's".

 

you can simply go to the windows genuine page and download it from there if you want to unless you installed the pre release version then you will not see it in win updates

 

If you ran the genuine advantage add-on at the website I know that the update doesn't appear in your updates list. Did you do that? Also I know people did not see the update until they rebooted their computer.

 

Bah ... I'm not gonna mess with that update one way or the other.
I don't need yet another service running to tell me what I already know.
At this point it's becoming a nuisance.

 

Not quite sure what the nuisance is for you. Certainly neither your OS nor Windows Update (or Microsoft Update) ever bothered you about this....

 

I said that in the capacity that MS is becoming a nuisance with all their validation checks.
After the abysmal problems they had with various Vista and XP validations reporting the OS-es in question were not legit when in fact they were.

If history repeats itself, it only creates more problems for us.

 

I hid the update from windows update. I see no potential benefits and with the possibility of problems (as with any update), why should I install it?