aargh, Vista activation

[mgutz]

I recently bought an Abit IP35-Pro board so I've been testing it with different configurations, for example 4x1GB versus 2x2GB. Different video cards 7600 GT vs X1950XT. Yes these are all things I have so I try different configurations. I've had to reactive no less than three times. So now that I have pretty much the configuration I want, I tried moving my Vista partition from my slower WD SE16 250GB to my new, faster Samsung 500GB drive. I knew I was going to reboot a lot so I didn't see the need to stress test my new HDD. Guess what, I've been locked out of Vista x64. It's our MSDN subscription license so now I have to explain why I used all of our licenses when I wasn't doing anything illegal.

I'm fed up, I just want a hassle free 64-bit OS where I can run VMWare sessions and install Vmware tools. That's basically what I'm doing now is bootstrapping VMWare sessions using Vista x64. I wouldn't even be running Vista x64 if XP took advantage of more memory. If I'm not mistaken there is a version of VMWare for Linux 64. Does anybody know a good Linux distro that has 64-bit drivers for the P35 chipset? For graphics, ATI X1950XT or NVidia 7600GT? The most important thing is being able to use more than 4GB of memory. I eventually want to go to 8GB.

 

[mechBgon]

Suggestion: next time, uncheck the Auto-activation box during installation, and don't activate until you're good & ready.

Oh, and http://shop4.outpost.com/produ...sr:SEARCH:MAIN_RSLT_PG

 

[mgutz]

You know I didn't think about that. I should have installed a copy of Vista x64 in trial mode but I had all my screenshot tools and benchmarking tools on my vista installation. Still, if there is a light 64-bit linux with a basic window manager that lets me run VMWare I'll be happier.

I'm not understanding the link. I have Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 4x1GB for my new system.

 

[mechBgon]

I'm not understanding the link. I have Crucial Ballistix PC2-8500 4x1GB for my new system.

It's a decent buy on 2GB modules, in case you were wanting to set up 8GB on a budget. Anyway, I'm sure someone will nominate a suitable Linux for you before long.

 

[mgutz]

o i c, thanks for the link. that is a decent price. that might work in my old dell.

 

[Schadenfroh]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>It's our MSDN subscription license so now I have to explain why I used all of our licenses when I wasn't doing anything illegal. </end quote></div>
Call Microsoft (using the phone number provided from the activation window) and explain your situation to them. It is quick, easy and I am confident they will understand and help you out.


and what in the hell is going on with the forums? The quote turns to garbage.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Schadenfroh
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>It's our MSDN subscription license so now I have to explain why I used all of our licenses when I wasn't doing anything illegal. </end quote></div>
Call Microsoft (using the phone number provided from the activation window) and explain your situation to them. It is quick, easy and I am confident they will understand and help you out.


and what in the hell is going on with the forums? The quote turns to garbage.

I think they're running on impulse engines until they can get another dilithium crystal for the warp drive

 

[bsobel]

<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: mgutz
I recently bought an Abit IP35-Pro board so I've been testing it with different configurations, for example 4x1GB versus 2x2GB. Different video cards 7600 GT vs X1950XT. Yes these are all things I have so I try different configurations. I've had to reactive no less than three times. So now that I have pretty much the configuration I want, I tried moving my Vista partition from my slower WD SE16 250GB to my new, faster Samsung 500GB drive. I knew I was going to reboot a lot so I didn't see the need to stress test my new HDD. Guess what, I've been locked out of Vista x64. It's our MSDN subscription license so now I have to explain why I used all of our licenses when I wasn't doing anything illegal.</end quote></div>

There was no reason to activate each install if you were testing...
The MSDN license and key page even tells you that.

 

[zig3695]

im surprised there isnt a way to 'deactivate' your install before you change something. maybe they were worried about hackers doing for people....

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: zig3695
im surprised there isnt a way to 'deactivate' your install before you change something. maybe they were worried about hackers doing for people....

Yep, it becomes a pretty nice denial of service attack on peoples boxes (and the MS activation system itself) if you allow this...

 

[mgutz]

i was stupid i should not have reactivated until i was completely done. i didn't think about the ramifications. it just said you need to reactivate and i figured it was harmless since it's a legit license. nothing is that simple i guess. anyway, i'm looking at CentOS 5 64-bit which is based of Red Hat since it got good recommendations in the VMWare forums. as i said, all i want to do is run VMWare machines in this new box. i still have the trusty XP Pro on another box. i'm pretty impressed so far with Centos (running it inside vmware for a test run). i'm loving the UI, this coming from a guy who prefers Windows classic to the Aero candy. linux has come a long way from when i used it in college. my only concern are the drivers for my X1950XT, there seems to be better 64-bit support from nvidia so i may have to swap out the card with my 7600GT.

if this works and all indications are it will, it's hasta la Vista baby (pun intended).

 

[RebateMonger]

Vista is REALLY friendly for folks wanting to test it. You can install virtually ANY version of Vista with ANY Vista DVD. And you can do it for at least 30 days without even supplying a Vista Key. Supposedly, you can even extend those 30-day trials to 60 or 90 days or more using a couple of well-documented techniques that use Microsoft's built-in tools.

 

[jkresh]

I installed vista in February and just activated today (was hoping to wait till the end of july as I am going to pick up a q6600 and possibly a dx10 gpu but it wouldn't let me postpone it anymore). Mgutz, shouldn't you be able to call Microsoft explain the situation and get it fixed (they tend to be pretty good with that).

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: zig3695
im surprised there isnt a way to 'deactivate' your install before you change something. maybe they were worried about hackers doing for people....

Itunes allows this. It would be the smart thing to do for MS.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: bsobel
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: zig3695
im surprised there isnt a way to 'deactivate' your install before you change something. maybe they were worried about hackers doing for people....</end quote></div>

Yep, it becomes a pretty nice denial of service attack on peoples boxes (and the MS activation system itself) if you allow this...

How so? It would be no more and no less likely to result in an activation DOS than the current activation system. I'm assuming that deactivation would be cryptographically protected just like activation is.

 

[RebateMonger]

It's hard to know why there's no "un-activation" technique. Offhand, I'd guess that it's a feature that most folks will never need and it introduces other potential problems. 90+% of all current PCs are OEM and can't legitmately have their Windows XP transferred to another PC anyway.

The other feature that would be "nice" is a way to check a Key for legitmacy. But the potential problems with that are much more apparent - large networks of "pwned PCs" that constantly test Keys, trying to find "good" ones.

 

[mgutz]

Originally posted by: jkresh
I installed vista in February and just activated today (was hoping to wait till the end of july as I am going to pick up a q6600 and possibly a dx10 gpu but it wouldn't let me postpone it anymore). Mgutz, shouldn't you be able to call Microsoft explain the situation and get it fixed (they tend to be pretty good with that).

It should not be a problem getting Vista reactivated, unfortunately I'm not the gatekeeper of our MSDN subscription so I have to ask our network admin to contact MS and reactivate. My point more than anything is you have to reactivate if you do something as simple as changing out the motherboard, try different memory, etc. And if you reactivate too many times MS assumes you are doing something illegal and forces you to reactivate. What's sad is only legit users are affected by this. Non-legit users bypass MS activation anyway.

 

[mgutz]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Vista is REALLY friendly for folks wanting to test it. You can install virtually ANY version of Vista with ANY Vista DVD. And you can do it for at least 30 days without even supplying a Vista Key. Supposedly, you can even extend those 30-day trials to 60 or 90 days or more using a couple of well-documented techniques that use Microsoft's built-in tools.

I have screenshot utils, benchmarking utils, mail, etc in my already installed Vista. Are you saying I should install a test Vista everytime I want to upgrade my computer? That's just a waste of time. And what if you only have one drive, can you even install two Vistas on the same drive?

 

[GregMal]

Yep.......I used Trial mode to 30 days, then did clean install, and I'm on another 30 days.
You can even extend this another 60 days if needed.....

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: mgutz
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: jkresh
I installed vista in February and just activated today (was hoping to wait till the end of july as I am going to pick up a q6600 and possibly a dx10 gpu but it wouldn't let me postpone it anymore). Mgutz, shouldn't you be able to call Microsoft explain the situation and get it fixed (they tend to be pretty good with that).</end quote></div>

It should not be a problem getting Vista reactivated, unfortunately I'm not the gatekeeper of our MSDN subscription so I have to ask our network admin to contact MS and reactivate. My point more than anything is you have to reactivate if you do something as simple as changing out the motherboard, try different memory, etc. And if you reactivate too many times MS assumes you are doing something illegal and forces you to reactivate. What's sad is only legit users are affected by this. Non-legit users bypass MS activation anyway.

MSDN is licensed to a SINGLE USER for testing...if your name is not on the agreement, you shouldn't be using this anyway. I know, because we had to relicense recently, and ended up with more licenses then we used to (we used to do a "site" license for each site...now it's every lead, and that is pushing the line, but we got permission from an MSDN rep to run like that)

 

[mgutz]

Originally posted by: nweaver

MSDN is licensed to a SINGLE USER for testing...if your name is not on the agreement, you shouldn't be using this anyway. I know, because we had to relicense recently, and ended up with more licenses then we used to (we used to do a "site" license for each site...now it's every lead, and that is pushing the line, but we got permission from an MSDN rep to run like that

Huh? You do know there are different levels of subscription. I forget which version we have, we're a partner, but we are allowed 10 licenses so it is NOT SINGLE USER license. I don't know where you are going with that that you had to shout it out. The POINT IS I am not the contact and I've been down the last couple of days because of the presumed-guilty-until-you-call-us-activation scheme.

Anyway, CentOS 5 64-bit is working just fine with VMWare and it seems to be faster with less overhead than Vista x64. It was a pain to configure. It took me probably about 45 minutes max to install Vista x64 with VMWare. I'm going on 10 hours with CentOS building packages I need, reading manuals. My network controller was not identified nor could it read NTFS partitions. I got both of those to work. I still have configuring to do, my display is not using my LCDs native resolution of 1680x1050 and my graphics card (ATI X1950XT is not supported. Still, CentOS using generic drivers runs VMWare sessions noticeably faster than Vista. To be honest, I could not use this as my main OS but for development it's bye bye Vista.

 

[mgutz]

Well I put in a lot effort to use CentOS 5 linux which is really Red Hat Enterprise Linux. I decided it's not for me. I was able to get all my hardware recognized but for whatever reason I cannot get it to use 1680x1050 resolution. I spent hours copying/editing xorg.conf (Xwindow configuration) and regardless what I do it stays at a lower resolution. I invested a good 12 hours configuring, buliding modules getting my hardware recognized and CentOS is still not doing what I want. It should not be this hard but to be fair I have newer components and I knew going in getting hardware recognized is the tricky part of linux.

I thought VMWare was faster on linux but I think that was more wishful thinking since I had put so many hours getting the OS to a state where I could run virtual machines. After spending a whole day doing development inside of VMWare sessions I'll retract my statement that VMWare is faster on CentOS. Maybe because I don't have CentOS optimized and probably because I was running my virtual session off of an NTFS partition which is not officially supported.

BTW, our network guy had no problem getting my locked Vista x64 reactivated. The MS tech thought nothing of it. Also, we do not have an MSDN subscription as I originally thought. MSDN is printed on the DVD but our network guy said we get MSDN material as part of our agreement with MS. The gentleman above was correct in that true MSDN subscriptions are restricted to a single developer and I was wrong.

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: mgutz
<div class="FTQUOTE"><begin quote>Originally posted by: nweaver

MSDN is licensed to a SINGLE USER for testing...if your name is not on the agreement, you shouldn't be using this anyway. I know, because we had to relicense recently, and ended up with more licenses then we used to (we used to do a "site" license for each site...now it's every lead, and that is pushing the line, but we got permission from an MSDN rep to run like that </end quote></div>

Huh? You do know there are different levels of subscription. I forget which version we have, we're a partner, but we are allowed 10 licenses so it is NOT SINGLE USER license. I don't know where you are going with that that you had to shout it out. The POINT IS I am not the contact and I've been down the last couple of days because of the presumed-guilty-until-you-call-us-activation scheme.

Yes, there are different levels, but the bottom line is each MSDN license (not the OS license, but the actual MSDN account) gives ONE USER access to the MS library (what pieces depends on the subscription) for testing purposes only.