Activation and Visual Studio 2005
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Ok, I've been asked to troubleshoot some Vista installation, which for no apparent reason refuses to activate. It activated just fine, then at some point a couple days later gives a message that it can't activate, and will expire in twenty-something days, whatever. I can't find what's wrong with it, it activates against a volume license server whatchamacallit, but the license manager script now simply fails: it doesn't give a warning, or ask for a valid key, or threatens to sue or send every single person in the company to jail or whatever. It simply won't run, it won't even show the command-line help. Okay, whatever, we can't find the problem, so we reinstall. Same deal, same computer. I reformat everything, install, validate against the license server that's setup somewhere in the building (I don't know or care where), then a week later it fails again. Same error (0xE0000204, "can't find detailed error description", even Vista has no idea what the error is). So I think, maybe there was some product installed that broke the script thingy. I check, and both times the failure and message of impending doom coincided with about the installation of Visual Studio 2005. It makes sense to me, after all, the smart people at Microsoft decided to have Vista validate using freakin' VBSCRIPT crap, and Visual Studio installs some sort of JIT/compiler for VBSCRIPT crap, right? So, I can't just prove it yet, but it seems that Visual Studio breaks Vista. Not just an incompatibility, or that it won't run, but it makes it so that Vista cannot run its own damn ACTIVATION VISUAL BASIC SCRIPT that it's completely vital for it's operation! Isn't the new Activation scheme just grrrreat?! :wtf: PS: Uninstalling Visual Studio won't fix it. It seems I'll have to reformat and reinstall, and stick a million postits on the workstation warning against installing anything remotely Visual Studio related... I hope the server doesn't run out of activations :mad: /end rant
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Ok, I've been asked to troubleshoot some Vista installation, which for no apparent reason refuses to activate. It activated just fine, then at some point a couple days later gives a message that it can't activate, and will expire in twenty-something days, whatever. I can't find what's wrong with it, it activates against a volume license server whatchamacallit, but the license manager script now simply fails: it doesn't give a warning, or ask for a valid key, or threatens to sue or send every single person in the company to jail or whatever. It simply won't run, it won't even show the command-line help. Okay, whatever, we can't find the problem, so we reinstall. Same deal, same computer. I reformat everything, install, validate against the license server that's setup somewhere in the building (I don't know or care where), then a week later it fails again. Same error (0xE0000204, "can't find detailed error description", even Vista has no idea what the error is). So I think, maybe there was some product installed that broke the script thingy. I check, and both times the failure and message of impending doom coincided with about the installation of Visual Studio 2005. It makes sense to me, after all, the smart people at Microsoft decided to have Vista validate using freakin' VBSCRIPT crap, and Visual Studio installs some sort of JIT/compiler for VBSCRIPT crap, right? So, I can't just prove it yet, but it seems that Visual Studio breaks Vista. Not just an incompatibility, or that it won't run, but it makes it so that Vista cannot run its own damn ACTIVATION VISUAL BASIC SCRIPT that it's completely vital for it's operation! Isn't the new Activation scheme just grrrreat?! :wtf: PS: Uninstalling Visual Studio won't fix it. It seems I'll have to reformat and reinstall, and stick a million postits on the workstation warning against installing anything remotely Visual Studio related... I hope the server doesn't run out of activations :mad: /end rant
M$ have recently released an update which changes a few local files which are responsible for activation. This was an attempt to stop the Frankenbuilds from activating. Quite a few legit users have experienced problems with this update much similar to what you have described. Check your "windows update history" for the update 'KB929931', if it has been installed you might want to try removing it. To do this you will need to boot from the install DVD and select "Repair my computer", perform a system restore to a point before the update. You cannot do this from within windows itself since the restore does not remove those updated files.
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M$ have recently released an update which changes a few local files which are responsible for activation. This was an attempt to stop the Frankenbuilds from activating. Quite a few legit users have experienced problems with this update much similar to what you have described. Check your "windows update history" for the update 'KB929931', if it has been installed you might want to try removing it. To do this you will need to boot from the install DVD and select "Repair my computer", perform a system restore to a point before the update. You cannot do this from within windows itself since the restore does not remove those updated files.
Thanks for the tip, I will certainly try it... although I tried running Restore to see what points I have, and I can only see the last 4 or 5 points that of my attempts to fix it by uninstalling programs like VS. (I mean, all my restore points are for "uninstalled x or y"). I hope rebooting from the DVD will show me more points than these. Alternatively, I may just be forced to scour the evil 'internets' for some method to rip this crap out by force. Note: I've read about that "frankenbuild buster" update thing, but the odd thing is that I have an untouched installation - maybe Visual Studio replaced files and now Microsoft considers the OS corrupt? The oddest thing is that I have NO way to activate Windows. If I went to the internet and bought a new activation key or whatever with my credit card, I simply would have no way to enter it on Windows, since the program just plainly doesn't work. It doesn't refuse keys, it just doesn't run at all! Any and every attempt to run slmgr.vbs (directly, or with wscript or cscript, as shown in the MSDN pages) is met with an "unable to find detailed error description" error. Even if I do slmgr /? or without parameters, or just querying the current status of my license :confused: It's not that it isn't finding the server either, because that's a two step process: 1st step merely tells the thing what the new "url" is going to be, without actually connecting... and it gets the same error. Seems to me like some sort of runtime/syntax error/whatever. That's why my prime suspect is Visual Studio. -- modified at 15:20 Monday 18th December, 2006
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M$ have recently released an update which changes a few local files which are responsible for activation. This was an attempt to stop the Frankenbuilds from activating. Quite a few legit users have experienced problems with this update much similar to what you have described. Check your "windows update history" for the update 'KB929931', if it has been installed you might want to try removing it. To do this you will need to boot from the install DVD and select "Repair my computer", perform a system restore to a point before the update. You cannot do this from within windows itself since the restore does not remove those updated files.
WalderMort wrote:
Quite a few legit users have experienced problems with this update much similar to what you have described.
That's the trouble with all this anti-piracy stuff. It just at best inconveniences and at worst screws up legitimate users while the pirates get around it anyway.
Kevin