Guys,
I turned my "elderly" Dell 510m laptop on last night and although it is a computer that I use very infrequently, it booted up OK and I started to use it as per normal, when a "thing" came up on the task-bar that said:



So I did click on the bubble and it asked me to input my product key, which I then did.
I was told the product key was invalid and that I should call Micro$oft.
I have all the disks for this computer and it is one of the 3 I have that uses "legitimate" software, so what could be wrong here, I thought.

Anyhow, I did ring M$ (after being on hold for about 50 minutes) and they asked me to give them my product key and they said it was fine at their end and that I should call Dell (I guess you can sort of work out where this is leading).

I rang Dell, because I had some rare time to kill and was promptly put on hold for 40 minutes.
When I did get to talk to the guy in India, he told me it is an Operating System problem, but he said that the 510m is no longer supported by Dell and I should look at buying a "newer" computer, with a "better" OS.

I called M$ back (only 25 minutes on hold this time) and told them what the Dell guy had said and they told me:


So, is this some sort of planned obsolesence that M$ has taken upon themselves with the Windas XP Genuine Advantage thing?
I have 28 days to work out what I'm going to do with this computer, it works fine, but in 28 days it will cease to function with XP on it.
I made no changes to it before I shut the thing down the last time I used it.

If this is the "ticking time-bomb" attitude M$ want's to take with it's software, I know a really decent distro of Linux I can throw on it, if it comes to that.
That is looking rather likely.

Your thoughts?

Back up your files and reload it. My guess is you have a corrupted system file and that is usually a hard drive going away. It may respond to a format (full) but if it is really going bad that will take forever and might not finish.

As long as you are absolutely sure you got the key right (not using a 5 for a S and stuff like that) it has to be the file that it matches in the system nucleus.

What version is this? I have a W/XP pro Dell restore disk

I think you've spent more time on this problem than I have on all my linux problems in the last couple years, including major upgrades.

Maybe you can change the date on the computer, or does that trick still work?

I've gotten that message before with the "Windows Genuine Advantage Notification" update before; I'm assuming this was already installed and you had already activated your key online?

Don't really know what to tell you, other than a reformat and make sure you don't install WGA with your updates.

It comes with Service Pack 3 wether you like it or not.

Greg,
It is windas XP Pro.
You can use any disk you like, but if the key isn't "right" you get locked out.
Ubuntu is looking pretty good at this time.

I suspect the file that actually compares the key is honked up. My FIL had that happen to him and a reload fixed it.
Same deal Dell was no help and Microsoft said it was Dell machine and they wanted $80 an hour to talk to us.

I do have some Dell OS XP pro disks I can send you a copy of. I may have SP2 and 3. I sort of collect them ;-)

They do seem to work across other manufacturer's platforms but the drivers may not be there.

Mike,

Any news regarding the OS issue?

-- Scott

Hi there Scott,
Yeah, I tried everything to try and fix the problem, but in the end the activation period ran out the other day.
Not to worry though, this computer is wearing a new coat of Linux (Ubuntu 10.10 (Maverick Meerkat)) and it's running a LOT faster than what XP ever did.
One strange thing about this computer now, is that downloads happen in a fraction of a second, instead of the minutes they used to take.