After finally getting Vista working on my desktop at about 11:30pm last night (it took 11 hours) the nightmare continued today. I would appear that although I purchased the upgrade version and still have XP on the hard drive (although I’m unable to access it) Vista now thinks that I should have a stand lone product key for validation, so essentially I’m unable to validate my totally 100% legal copy of Vista!
I did some digging and finally rang Microsoft this morning. After nearly 1 hour on the phone talking to 3 different people, I received this advice (copied directly from the email):
1. Restart Computer and Boot from Windows Vista DVD
2. Run Setup again, without entering the Product Key
3. Complete installation and boot into Windows Vista
4. While in Windows Vista, boot the Windows Vista DVD
5. Run Setup again and this time enter the product key
6. Complete the installation and you should be able to activate Windows Vista from here.
Yep, they’re telling me to reinstall Vista TWICE! Are they f*cking joking? I asked them to give me a key that works, they told me I’d have to buy it despite the fact that I’ve already purchased Vista and could provide them the Vista key and the original XP key. So I’ve got 29 days before Vista shuts down, I’ve had to reinstall all my software and drivers and now I have to do it all again twice! If I’m feeling brave I might try on the weekend but I tell you what at this point I’ve had enough of Microsoft, I’ve used Microsoft products since DOS god knows what and can still remember running Word for DOS, I’ve spent tens of thousands of dollars over the years on PCs and software and as far as Microsoft is concerned that don’t mean jack! Vista might be pretty, and admittedly it is fairly fast, but the whole Macs just work line is really driving me to the point that my next computer will be a Mac. The lost productivity and work time in dollar figures alone yesterday would have made for a nice deposit.
