Vista won't open/can't validate through ms

My laptop came with Vista installed and no disk. A few days ago, I started getting the error msg that vista needed to be validated before it could open. I put in the code on the bottom of the laptop and it said it was invalid. Now, Vista won't open all the way, just enough to use ie. I tried to go to ms site and validate it, but when I hit "validate now", it says it's validating for about a second, then I can see where there are directions to download active x, but before I can even read it, it redirects to ms search. I've tried three times now and it keeps doing it.

Thoughts?

Thanks
katie

 

If the laptop is brand new and there are this many faults with it (not activated, no activeX etc) then I would recommend returning the laptop and exchanging it as it is obvious there are major problems.

 

Well, here's the thing. This is actually my mom's laptop, one of two that she's given me to fix because she was having problems on both of them. The other one is running windows 7 and I'm getting the same messages about courterfiet windows. The one with 7 is running super slow, like 20 seconds between keystrokes, slow. I thought it might be a virus because it started happening on both at the same time and she has a ten year old living with her who will download anything.

And they aren't new. One she's had for 2 years and the other for at least one.

I tried system restore to a date before the problems started on the one with windows 7 and it wouldn't work, kept saying system restore couldn't be completed. I ran malwarebytes and spybot and it didn't pick up anything.

The one with vista won't let me access anything but ie in limited access mode, so I can't run any malware programs(can I?).

Could this be a virus or am I looking at a coincidental software issue?

Thanks

 

Hi Katie, it might be best to try to troubleshoot 1 laptop at a time

Can you restart the Vista laptop and, as it's restarting, keep tapping the F8 key until you get a boot options page, use the keyboard arrows to navigate to Safe Mode with networking and select it by pressing the Enter key. Once you're in Windows, can you try validating again?

If you could get some screenshots or cellphone photo's of the page with the ActiveX and the redirect and attach them here, it might help us track down what's going on.

 

If this is happening on both, id look into the store she bought em at. Might be counterfit right from the store if its a shady business. Has been known to happen around my area anyhow.

 

Yeah, definitely need to do one at a time, I was just trying to explain why I thought it might be a virus rather than a software issue because it started doing the same thing on both around the same time


ETA: Forgot to add that the screen goes dark about 20 minutes after I turn it on, while I'm using it. The computer doesn't turn off, just the screen and I can't make it come back. Sometimes it will on it's own after a few minutes but sometimes not.
Anyway, I tried starting it in safe mode but it says "your activation period has expired....." and I have to close it and go back into normal mode. I know she's had this one for at least two years and up until recently had no issues. I wish I could give you more background, but I didn't have it so I don't really know exactly when it started or what may have happened prior this.

As far as getting a screen shot, the active x screen is literally only up for a second and then it's gone. It looks like a screen shot of a dialog box to download active x and directions on how to do it, but I just can't get the page to stay up. It immediately redirects to ms search.

Obviously I'm not extremely computer savvy, this just ended up in my lap because I've gotten rid of malware for her before. I'm way out of my league on this one......

Anything else I could try?

Katie

 

Can you try running the diagnostics from here, please? You can do this for both laptops, there should be a log file created, it would be useful if you could zip and attach it.

 

I'm not home now but will run diagnostics tonight and post. I ended up doing a complete restore on the one with windows 7 and it's working perfectly now. I returned it to my mom and she said it ran 95 updates last night and still works fine this morning, so......one down, I guess.

I'll be back this evening...

Katie

 

Well, I just tried to run diagnostics from ms and when I click the "start diagnostics" button, it takes me right back to that same ms search page I get when I try to validate. This one http://search.microsoft.com/?mkt=en-us.


I do have an email into ms to see if they can help. I'm not sure what else to do.

 

Thanks for the links. I remember getting a service pack 3 download on my own laptop with vista and everything went crazy until I got rid of it. The link says I should be running service pack 2, but I have absolutely no access to windows on that machine. How do I find out what service pack is installed?