yet another activation

Yesterday i accidently set CMOS time to somewhere in 2016. Then i booted with vista and it said i need to activate it (which i had already done). Then i booted with XP and, after getting expiry messages from office and norton, i finally made the link and set the CMOS time back to the present time. I booted in xp again and everything was working as usual, but then i booted with vista and, to my great disappointment, found that it was still asking me to activate (which i definately did before).
Complicating the matter further is the fact that this all happened 14 days from installing vista (changing and reseting of the CMOS time).
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I can't just get a new serial or reinstall because vista's no longer being distributed :'(

You should simply activate Windows Vista again and failing that you may have to reformat. How can you accidently set the CMOS time to 2016?
"DrDoom" wrote:

Yesterday i accidently set CMOS time to somewhere in 2016. Then i booted with vista and it said i need to activate it (which i had already done). Then i booted with XP and, after getting expiry messages from office and norton, i finally made the link and set the CMOS time back to the present time. I booted in xp again and everything was working as usual, but then i booted with vista and, to my great disappointment, found that it was still asking me to activate (which i definately did before).
Complicating the matter further is the fact that this all happened 14 days from installing vista (changing and reseting of the CMOS time).
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I can't just get a new serial or reinstall because vista's no longer being distributed :'(

"Stephen Norman" wrote:

You should simply activate Windows Vista again and failing that you may have to reformat. How can you accidently set the CMOS time to 2016?
"DrDoom" wrote:
Yesterday i accidently set CMOS time to somewhere in 2016. Then i booted with vista and it said i need to activate it (which i had already done). Then i booted with XP and, after getting expiry messages from office and norton, i finally made the link and set the CMOS time back to the present time. I booted in xp again and everything was working as usual, but then i booted with vista and, to my great disappointment, found that it was still asking me to activate (which i definately did before).
Complicating the matter further is the fact that this all happened 14 days from installing vista (changing and reseting of the CMOS time).
Any help would be greatly appreciated. I can't just get a new serial or reinstall because vista's no longer being distributed :'(

Sorry about that.
Basically, when i try to activate i get the error at http://luke.slashmedia.co.uk/activationerror.gif
As to how i accidentally set CMOS time, its a very long story involving 2 keyboards and boot manager drivers, and i've already written it and accidentally deleted it, and i really cant be bothered to write it again.

DrDoom wrote:

Sorry about that.
Basically, when i try to activate i get the error at http://luke.slashmedia.co.uk/activationerror.gif
As to how i accidentally set CMOS time, its a very long story involving 2 keyboards and boot manager drivers, and i've already written it and accidentally deleted it, and i really cant be bothered to write it again.

I don't know abut Vista but with all other Microsoft software that has a time bomb you have to format and start again.
-- Kerry MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

but i installed so much on it :'( isnt there like a registry key or something that i can change to make it realise that it hasnt actually expired?

DrDoom wrote:

but i installed so much on it :'( isnt there like a registry key or something that i can change to make it realise that it hasnt actually expired?

Again, I'm not sure with Vista but with other MS time-bombed software once the time bomb is activated there is no going back, no registry hacks, no files to delete, etc.
-- Kerry MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User

There must be a registry hack of some kind, though it probably hasnt been found out yet. Vista has to store the information that the time bomb has been activated somewhere, and where is there other than the registry.
Oh well, i really cant be bothered to reinstall vista again for a while. I've got like 10 other computer related projects on the go.
Thanks for your help though :)
Anyone else with any new relavent info, pls post

I have been running Vista for abour 3 weeks now. After MS announcement about how download is not available, my Vista tells me that Activation period has expired. Then it gives me 4 options:
1. activate vista 2. re-type produce key 3. activate other ways 4. (i don't remember this option)
It doesn't matter which option I choose, my PC always ends up freezing up?
Any thoughts? I really don't want to spend another hour reinstalling Vista.
PS. no CMOS changes or anything