andrea wrote on 2020-11-02, 19:01:

Is there any chance the key may be "recycled" from some major OEM machine? Around Vista-time they noticed people were going arou […]
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debs3759 wrote on 2020-11-02, 01:59:

Updates should finish soon, then I'll try again. I t says it is invalid for activation, but it did say I could try activating by phone. I might try doing that tomorrow. I have found some unused codes, so hope they will still be available when I can next pay in 11 days.

Is there any chance the key may be "recycled" from some major OEM machine? Around Vista-time they noticed people were going around electronics stores writing down the keys on demo machines, so they made these funky OEM keys for computers where the activation would normally be done by SLIC tables (= you would need the key on the sticker only if you replaced the motherboard with a non-OEM one*) that will only activate by phone, and not automagically over the internet.

Try selecting the activate by phone and run the codes through this site: https://microsoft.gointeract.io/interact/inde … 26&token=0Yr8Nd
It looks dodgy but it's what MS would send you if you call them and choose to activate via smartphone. I used it earlier this year to activate a XP license and it worked. As far as I know XP's activate-by-phone algorithm hasn't been cracked yet**, so if it works there must be a legitimate backend.

If it says that the link is expired try googling for "Self Service for Mobile" and you should find updated links, usually on Reddit.

*Of course, there are ways to add SLIC tables to any BIOS, but that's not for this forum.
**The source leak from last month it's missing Winlogon and, therefore, the activation stuff, so that can't be either.

They appear to be HP codes, so that might be the problem. I'll check out that link, thanks. Shouldn't need it now I have 10 unused codes on their way to me, but it can't hurt to try 😀

Thanks for the info guys. I was wondering about this while comparing the 32-bit and 64-bit versions of PCMark Vantage.