[Hoffer802]

Yep...I know remember why I was never a fan of Microsoft....and I now know how Microsoft makes all its money.....

Ok so the other day I upgraded my MBP from 2 gigs of ram to 3 gigs of ram...well everything is running beautifully on the mac side...like it always does.......but today I boot up in vista to play Sins of a solar empire and two things happened...leading to a very frustrating confrontation with Windows...

Problem 1: So after installing Sins of a Solar Empire, I find that there is a serious graphic glitch with the game on my computer. The backgrounds end up filling with random colors and patterns making it impossible to see what you are doing. So I go to check out the drivers and end up installing the newest ATI Catalyst drivers...well attempted too. Everytime I go to install the catalyst driver it tells me that there is already a version installed...so I hunt down all the ati drivers and throw them out to do a fresh install of the Catalyst drivers. After wiping all the ATI drivers out...I am unable to install catalyst, but everything is running ok and I go about playing other various games =p until........

Problem 2: Apparently something I did (whether it was messing with my graphic's card drivers or installing the new ram) apparently Vista believes its on a completely new computer and flashes its stupid warning how I only have 3 days to activate my version of Vista. So I go to activate it...and apparently my activation code has already been used up.....and it gives me one of two options....either enter a new key which I have on me...or go buy vista all over again and get another key.

So here I am....Microsoft and its amazing tech support wants to charge me $60.00 bucks to even open a chat window with a tech guy just to ask him what I need to do, and nothing online is of any help with my problem...so...I was wondering if anyone here has had this trouble and if so how did they manage to correct it?

I am thinking that to use Vista with the 3 gigs of ram I have to buy a whole new copy...which is complete crap if you ask me....but I don't feel like spending $60.00 to go yell and scream at a microsoft employee. Either that or I need to go back to 2 gigs of ram which will allow Vista to "Recognize" my computer as the same frickin one it was originally installed on.....

[bobbob]

Hoffer802, on February 29th 2008, 05:35 PM, said:

Problem 1: So after installing Sins of a Solar Empire, I find that there is a serious graphic glitch with the game on my computer. The backgrounds end up filling with random colors and patterns making it impossible to see what you are doing. So I go to check out the drivers and end up installing the newest ATI Catalyst drivers...well attempted too. Everytime I go to install the catalyst driver it tells me that there is already a version installed...

That's obviously a problem MS caused how? Seems like it could be bad RAM, a broken game, broken drivers, or a bad graphics card, or...

Quote

so I hunt down all the ati drivers and throw them out to do a fresh install of the Catalyst drivers. After wiping all the ATI drivers out...I am unable to install catalyst, but everything is running ok and I go about playing other various games =p until........

You might want to wait until the drivers are installed before continuing. What problem do you have installing them?

Quote

So I go to activate it...and apparently my activation code has already been used up.....and it gives me one of two options....either enter a new key which I have on me...or go buy vista all over again and get another key.

So here I am....Microsoft and its amazing tech support wants to charge me $60.00 bucks to even open a chat window with a tech guy just to ask him what I need to do, and nothing online is of any help with my problem...so...I was wondering if anyone here has had this trouble and if so how did they manage to correct it?

You have the key you need to do it, so did you do it? There should be a toll-free (in NA, don't know about anywhere else) phone number specific to activation and that's what you should be calling once you try to use the key and it doesn't work. When you try to activate, it'll list the option of phoning them and give the number, IIRC.

Quote

Either that or I need to go back to 2 gigs of ram which will allow Vista to "Recognize" my computer as the same frickin one it was originally installed on.....

It's entirely like MS to both go out of there way to require activation, and also manage to break it horribly for the third or fourth product they use it on, but there are indeed some patches in Windows Software Update that fix their braindead mistakes wrt this exact issue. When those don't work, maybe SP1 will?

[Hoffer802]

The driver issue was fixed, it was simply a matter of wiping the current ATI drivers and reinstalling them. The ram is fine as far as I can tell runs beautifully on both sides. The reason I am saying that this is a Microsoft problem is because somewhere amidst their help section, it mentioned that if there was a significant hardware upgrade or change....a new key code might be required, and I was under the impression that the only way to get a new key code was to purchase a new copy of Vista.

I do understand the reason behind requiring an activation key and using it, that was not the problem, but if it simply relies on your current hardware settings upon installation to "remember" your computer by, I think that needs to be tweaked a bit.

I will try the phone idea though, I was unaware that it provided links to other forms of service...

I would also like to apologize for being so brash lol. Was a long day and a lot of crap went wrong...the Vista thing was icing on the cake and really sent me off =p

[Jimmyz]

Yes, I had this issue awhile back. I have Vista ultimate 64bit. I thought I would utilize the 64bit OS and install 8gigs or RAM (2 GB sticks x 4). Then I started getting blue screens, and hangs. Then I started getting reactivation screens. Over and over, until vista became inoperable. I reinstalled vista, same thing.

Long story short, it was bad RAM. Click on the windows orb (Start Button), in the search area type "memory" (without quotes), and schedule a scan at start up. Once there press F1 to change the options and do a detailed scan of your memory. If it finds bad memory, you have to remove one stick at a time until you narrowed down that one bad stick of RAM. Although you could have a bad Ram slot but its more likely the RAM itself.

[Maestro]

I had a weird problem when I first installed some upgraded RAM. I got a red crash screen, and it rebooted itself a few times; but since then it's worked alright.