As promised, I am posting the response from MS support as to the cause/resolution of this problem.
I have been told that "This is a known issue with our WGA validation servers which has been resolved by Microsoft".
Indeed, it has been resolved... at least in my case for the moment. After waiting about eight hours, I went through the process again, for about the 10th time. It worked just fine, verifying that I have a legal version of MS Vista, just as I said I had.
I hope MS can keep their WGA validation servers functioning properly now so we won't have to go through this again in order to apply simple updates/upgrades to our software systems.
I hope the rest of you have also been able to successfully appy your changes as I finally was able to do.
If you are still not getting Verification the next step in order to fix the problem as told to me by MS Tech Support is:
Re-enter product key and then re-activate the system in order to refresh the relevant data store. To do this you would:
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1. Click the Start Button, right-click on "Computer" and click "Properties".
2. Click "Change product key".
Note: The operation requires administrative privileges, click "Continue" or "Allow" when the User Account Control dialog-box appear.
3. Enter the same product key you originally entered when you installed Vista and click "Next".
Then, confirm if the issue is resolved again. However, if the problem still exists or you encounter any other problems, you will need to contact MS support to resolve the problem.
