Vista activated

I called the PC vendor last Friday about being unable to activate my copy of Vista. They called back and said to go through the telephone activation method. So I tried going the telephone route on Sunday night. No luck.

Well, duh. They probably did not install my box using the DVD they sent. It would take a very long time that way. They probably had a master copy and simply cloned the PC's they build. They could clone using Ghost and can merge partitions (for bigger drives) with Partition Magic if need be. If they didn't use the DVD they sent with the PC, then the product key wouldn't match.

Being that I had only 4 days left to activate, I had to figure out which way I was going with this. So despite it being the wee hours of the morning, I took my Vista DVD and installed a Vista "upgrade" over my Vista. After approximately an hour installing (I didn't time it), bingo, online activation went without a hitch.

Some things will have to be re-installed, but at least I can stop worrying about the PC turning into a pumpkin. Despite all this, I am in fact, enjoying the new PC.