Rex93

Hi all,

Kids laptop Acer Aspire 9300 has gone up the swany!

it starts with "windows activation" The windows vista home premium product key you typed is invalid for activation.

when I click on the "type a different product key" I type in the product key from the affixed label on the laptop and it says "The following failure occured while trying to use the product key:
Code:0xC004F033
Description: The software service reported that the product key is not allowed to be installed. Please see the eventlog for details.

I can start the computer in safe mode and have run Belarc only to find that it finds a different product key? this also does the same whilst trying this one.

Don't have a clue as to what the girls have done and would appreciate any help in getting it working again.

Jeff Stryker

Had a similar problem when i bought my newest laptop. Just ring microsoft and they will give you a product key that works over the phone

Luminous

iTrader: (3)

I had heard a while ago that pirating groups were trying to use a method to generate product keys that had not yet been registered. This was meant as a double edged sword to MS. Firstly, the key would appear to be valid and would allow the pirated copy to work. Secondly, when the legitimate user tried to use their software it would fair, costly MS time, money and a PR headache.

Not heard anything more though, so maybe this is just a random error.

stiscooby

Has the laptop always had the same version of vista on it? Have you tried to upgrade from the "basic" version to the "premium"?

I had a similar problem with Vista on my PC when I had installed it for the first time, I fixed it by going through the activation wizard again and just re-entered my product code again and it then worked fine, but sounds like you have done this already.

If your still having problems I would just call MS. Best way to do it is try to activate it by telephone, it will then fail and you will then get put through to a MS customer service type person.

pimmo2000

iTrader: (6)

Error message when you try to activate Windows Vista: "An error has occurred"

Think you'll need to call them.

MattW

From Pimmos link

Error code 0xC004F033
If you receive this error code, verify that the product key can be used to upgrade Windows Vista from the current edition to the edition for which the key is intended. For more information, click the following article numbers to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
932616 (Installation choices for consumer versions of Windows Vista (32-bit only)) Installation choices for consumer versions of Windows Vista (32-bit only)
932795 (Installation choices for 64-bit consumer versions of Windows Vista) Installation choices for 64-bit consumer versions of Windows Vista