I went from 2 gigs ram to 4 gigs in my Alienware laptop today (see sig), and Vista Ultimate 64 bit (System builders, OEM, version from New Egg) "deactivated" and gave me that "You have 3 days to activate windows or it will stop working..." error message.
So, of course, I click Activate Windows, use the on line option, and I get another error message saying "This version of windows has already been activated on another PC... click here to buy a new copy of Windows". Can you believe that crap??!!
So, I try several more times, get the same error, and then I try the "activate with the telephone option", in lieu of calling customer support for 59 bucks.
A screen pops up with a 1-800 number to call, and a long code of numbers generated. I call the number, and was routed to somewhere in India. The woman asked me for the numbers on my screen, which i read, and she then said that my product key has already been activated on another computer. I said, "no, it is my same computer, I just added more ram." Finally, she reads me a string of numbers to input into the window, and then wala, my Vista Ultimate 64 bit activated again.
What a joke. Suppose I want to benchmark my computer with 2 gigs vs 4 gigs. Am I going to have to go through this each time? Suppose my laptop gets banged around a bit, and one ram dimm comes loose, so the next time I boot it, it has 2 gigs instead of 4. Same freaking hassle. Microsoft really needs to loosen this s h I T up.
And they wonder why guys have the nerve to pirate and hack their OS...
Sorry for the rant.
_________________
free registry cleaner personal loans for people with bad credit