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Second Request: Question about Product Keys RRS feed

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    The following web site...
    has this quote:
    A: On February 28, 2005, Microsoft® disabled Internet Activation on millions of Microsoft Windows® XP product keys located on COA labels that are distributed with PCs from large, multi-national OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers) who use System Lock Preinstall.
     
    So, all of the Product Keys from all of these multinational OEM COAs have been purged from the activation database, why are you guys asking people if the Product Key on their COA matches the one revealed by the WGA Validation troubleshooting program?  And why are you telling people to reinstall their OSs using the Product Key on the COA when in the case of computers built by multinational OEMs, those Product Keys have been removed from the database, so how could these keys work to activate and validate these installations of XP?
    Wednesday, May 24, 2006 1:37 AM

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     Dan at IT Associates wrote:

     

    So, all of the Product Keys from all of these multinational OEM COAs have been purged from the activation database, why are you guys asking people if the Product Key on their COA matches the one revealed by the WGA Validation troubleshooting program?  And why are you telling people to reinstall their OSs using the Product Key on the COA when in the case of computers built by multinational OEMs, those Product Keys have been removed from the database, so how could these keys work to activate and validate these installations of XP?

     

    Dan:

     

    Thanks for your feedback and help! We appreciate all the help you've given us and our team, and will be using the feedback accordingly :).

     

    We have users verify their COA and Product Key being used (by the diagnostics tool) to make sure that they need or don't need to purchase a new Windows Product Key. Many times someone (other than the owner/user of that computer) may install a non-genuine Product Key onto their computer (like using a VLK) because it is simply "easier". Unfortunately, this is not the correct use of Product Keys.

     

    If Product Keys do not match their COA sticker, then many times the next step is just to change that user's product key to match their COA. If Product Keys *do* match their COA sticker, then the user may be a victim of (high quality) counterfeitting.

     

    Having a user change their product key to match the COA on that specific machine will meet OEM License requirements for certain activation.

     

    I hope this helps,

     

    -Phil Liu

    Wednesday, May 24, 2006 2:44 AM