Have you also tried to activate it by telephone?
Here in Germany internet activation (of XP) does not work, but telephone activation does.

Disruptor wrote on 2024-05-25, 16:35:

Have you also tried to activate it by telephone?
Here in Germany internet activation (of XP) does not work, but telephone activation does.

I'd want to try that as a last resort since where I live, its kinda expensive to activate via telephone.

I think your best bet is to find a volume licence copy as this bypasses activation altogether.
You will need a volume licence key as well which is different to OEM, Retal, etc

chinny22 wrote on 2024-05-27, 01:33:

I think your best bet is to find a volume licence copy as this bypasses activation altogether.
You will need a volume licence key as well which is different to OEM, Retal, etc

Ill try that after Ill install IE 8. Maybe that's gonna work... Read on some post about activating server 2k3 on here and they said to keep hammering the retry button on error.
Activated XP home SP3 online with legacy update without any issues. Its as Microsoft shut down server 2k3 activation servers.

IE 8 not only didn't fix the issue, but even made it worse (or at least that's what I think). It now just throws the 32777 error. Before it would sit at the connecting to activation servers but now it only displays it for 2 seconds then throws the error. Any ideas?

I last online activated Server 2003 and Office 2003 in 2017. I remember it took two days for the activation to go through. I just kept hammering the activation servers until it finally worked. That was a long time ago now though.

kotel wrote on 2024-05-27, 05:56:

Its as Microsoft shut down server 2k3 activation servers.

Yep that's exactly what they did, even the phone servers don't work in some countries any more

you could try wsus online to fully patch the OS? This is needed for newer OS's like Windows 7 but don't like your chances for 2003 though.
https://download.wsusoffline.net/

I think 9.21 was the final for 2003? It's the last for XP anyway
https://download.wsusoffline.net/wsusoffline921.zip

chinny22 wrote on 2024-05-28, 02:10:

Yep that's exactly what they did, even the phone servers don't work in some countries any more […]
Show full quote

kotel wrote on 2024-05-27, 05:56:

Its as Microsoft shut down server 2k3 activation servers.

Yep that's exactly what they did, even the phone servers don't work in some countries any more

you could try wsus online to fully patch the OS? This is needed for newer OS's like Windows 7 but don't like your chances for 2003 though.
https://download.wsusoffline.net/

I think 9.21 was the final for 2003? It's the last for XP anyway
https://download.wsusoffline.net/wsusoffline921.zip

For activating over phone in countries where its no longer possible, you need to dial the what I like to call "universal" activation servers. I had the same issue with XP (before I knew about legacy update) where the phone numbers it gave me were no longer working. I think i used windows 7 phone activation phone. WSUS 9.21 is detected as Trojans on virustotal, so no idea if its safe.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-05-27, 01:33:

I think your best bet is to find a volume licence copy as this bypasses activation altogether.
You will need a volume licence key as well which is different to OEM, Retal, etc

Tried to install server 2k8 r2 datacenter VL (in a VM) but that says the system is not activated. No idea what i did wrong. Any ideas?

It wasn't for Microsoft but have had to dial international activation numbers and yeh it does suck.

I can imagine WSUS 9.21 been flagged as a trojan as it's kind of "tricking" windows to get updates from somewhere MS never intended originally, which would be a good way to infect a system as well.
Much like how legacy update also works.
Although If it concerns you don't worry about installing, I give it less than a 1% chance of allowing you to activate.

And good news you did nothing wrong with your Server 2008 install.
Windows XP/2003 Volume Licence were the last versions that bypassed activation.
Starting with Windows Vista/2008 all versions of windows even VL editions now require activation.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-05-29, 00:24:

It wasn't for Microsoft but have had to dial international activation numbers and yeh it does suck. […]
Show full quote

It wasn't for Microsoft but have had to dial international activation numbers and yeh it does suck.

I can imagine WSUS 9.21 been flagged as a trojan as it's kind of "tricking" windows to get updates from somewhere MS never intended originally, which would be a good way to infect a system as well.
Much like how legacy update also works.
Although If it concerns you don't worry about installing, I give it less than a 1% chance of allowing you to activate.

And good news you did nothing wrong with your Server 2008 install.
Windows XP/2003 Volume Licence were the last versions that bypassed activation.
Starting with Windows Vista/2008 all versions of windows even VL editions now require activation.

Ill try to install server 2k3 r2 VL in VM and see how that goes.

Since the PC i was installing server 2k3 r2 on was sold, I'm putting this project on hold until i get a new PC.

kotel wrote on 2024-05-31, 09:31:

Since the PC i was installing server 2k3 r2 on was sold, I'm putting this project on hold until i get a new PC.

You opened this thread a week ago!

REMOVED does also work for Windows Server 2003

Okay, so I'm back. This time with another PC. I have tried using this registry trick, but that only made things worse. Now I can't even activate it. It just logs me off when I try to activate. Probably due to me disabling SYSTEM access to modify WPAevents.
Question is, Is there anything I can do now to activate as it is? Or do I need to reinstall server 2k3 r2?

Maybe? but it's you'll probably spend more time troubleshooting then simply doing a clean install.

I just gave up and used the VL variant of 2k3 r2. Atleast I only had to use 1 new CD cause CD2 is the same for retail and VL...

R2 doesn't really add anything useful.
https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-server/new … -server-2003-r2

But that R2 version number does look nice 😉