problems with users in control panel + windows activation

Would you like to use apps like regmon or filemon to see what exactly is hapening?

 

im not familiar with them but i will give anything a try if it will help us down the path to resolving these 2 problems...

let me know

 

We will wait for Adrynalyne.He might have an easier plan.
But you might like to try them.
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/filemon.shtml
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/source/regmon.shtml

 

Don't wait on me, I'm simply grasping at straws at the moment.

Maybe, just maybe we can find what area of the registry is being used when trying to activate user accounts and one of us can send you a new key.

 

there is way too much stuff going on in those 2 files to make heads or tails of anything..

 

Well, this may or may not work....

Run the following at the command prompt:

[font=Verdana, Arial]oobe/msoobe /a[/font]


msoobe is the actual program that does the activation process

 

done tried that, same thing

 

I really hate not being able to edit my own posts. But, anyway.....

The following link may or may not help. Though, going through the steps anyway, may help...

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q314935

Unless of course you have already tried this....

I know that c:\windows\system32\oobe is where the Out of box experience stuff is located...

 

yea ive looked at that page, its a bit different than the problem im having, but i ran through all the suggestions on it earlier today to no avail....

also just a little FYI on this information, i exhaustingly ran through google groups lookin for this, seen TONS of people having problems similar to this, some with easy fixes, but the ones where the problem was close to what im having never seemed to have a resoluion go figure... i cop the one that cant be fixed....

i guess i could probably get some free support from microsoft considering this is a problem with activation, but i dont think they are really going to get me anywhere as ive talked to them in the past and still have support tickets open from months ago that i fixed myself and didnt bother telling them, but point being, they still dont know...

anyways, i will be around this computer for about another 75 minutes this afternoon, and if i dont get it tomorrow i guess i will break down and format it, i may even image the drive so i can play with it later....

keep the suggestions coming, hope someone has the die-hard solution soon....

 

I guarantee they wont get ya anywhere. If there is an answer, you have a better chance finding it on a forum, unfortunately.

I know their limitations, having worked with them till recently.

Edit:

Actually, just refuse to format and make certain they escalate you.

They refer to it as the research team

 

Some more info, I know that activation requires port 80 and port 443 (http/https). Are these blocked for that msoobe program?

I wonder how the unattended installs work with activation. Found some info about .vbs scripts and activation. http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/wpadepl.mspx

I know that the following vbscript will tell you if you need to activate or not...

Code:

strComputer = "."
 Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:" _
     & "{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
 
 Set colWPA = objWMIService.ExecQuery _
     ("Select * from Win32_WindowsProductActivation")
 
 For Each objWPA in colWPA
     Wscript.Echo "Activation Required: " & objWPA.ActivationRequired
     Wscript.Echo "Description: " & objWPA.Description
     Wscript.Echo "Product ID: " & objWPA.ProductID
     Wscript.Echo "Remaining Evaluation Period: " & _
         objWPA.RemainingEvaluationPeriod
     Wscript.Echo "Remaining Grace Period: " & objWPA.RemainingGracePeriod
     Wscript.Echo "Server Name: " & objWPA.ServerName
 Next

This was found at http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/scripts/desktop/activate/default.mspx

There are two scripts that help with online and offline activation. Perhaps a vbscript can be used as a workaround somehow.