I've been having some problems with activating the Microsoft VistaTM Business N edition I have installed on my Lenovo T60 Laptop. A while back I installed the KMS edition on it, but after 30 days I was unable to get it activate it and figured I should install the MAK edition instead and do online activation.
That proved to not be as easy as I had imagined, as everytime I tried activating I got hit by "0x8007232B - DNS Name does not exist.". Clearly it was looking for a host it couldn't find, most likely a KMS server as my laptop is a member of my work domain.
Today, I figured I would try again, and ended up entering my Open License MAK key again, and voilà it worked! So, if you are having problems activating your MAK based Vista install, try going to Control Panel -> System -> Windows Activation. Right on the lower right hand corner there should be an option to "Change product key". All I did was to re-enter the same key I used when initially installing my laptop and then it automatically activated itself.
Strange that the key entered during install resulted in a DNS error, while the same key works without problem if you enter it later on. I won't even try to explain it, it's just one of those things.
So far Vista is treating me good, and I'm very happy with how it performs so far. AMD/ATI released their new official Vista Graphics Drivers today too, but I was very disappointed that the Lenovo support site seems to be down and no new drivers for their products appear to be available the day Vista is officially released to everyone. I'll just have to wait to get the proper Thinkvantage software installed I guess.
Update:
The Lenovo support site was available right after this post was published, but there is still no ThinkVantage System Update™ version that supports Microsoft VistaTM available.
9 Comments so far
Lenovo Delivers System Update 3.0 - h0bbel, on January 31, 2007 at 9:27pm, said:
[...] couple of days ago I complained that Lenovo had not made a Vista compatible version of System Update available now that the Vista [...]
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Pidi, on February 16, 2007 at 4:34pm, said:
Thanks!
I had exactly the same problem and could solve it this way too.
Interesting is that I also have OneCare installed. When I re-entered the key and started the activation, OneCare popped up that it recognized the program and allowed access to the internet. Could it simply be that OneCare blocks activation when it's done by clicking the link (and not re-entering the code)?
Anyway, it's activated now.
Greetz,
Pidi
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h0bbel, on February 16, 2007 at 11:14pm, said:
I don't have OneCare installed, so that doesn't factor into my equation at least.
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Andrew, on March 19, 2007 at 12:58pm, said:
This fixed my activation issue too. Odd problem.
Thanks.
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h0bbel, on March 19, 2007 at 1:11pm, said:
Excellent, glad it could help someone.
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joecool, on April 27, 2007 at 2:19am, said:
PERFECT! That's what I needed!
As for the cause...I know that I didn't have to put in the Key for the MAK version..it gets bypassed. Once I 'changed the key' it worked fine! Great Tip!
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vista mak - Eniro, on May 8, 2007 at 9:59pm, said:
[...] Activating Microsoft Vista MAK Edition - h0bbel [...]
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Mark’s (we)Blog » Windows Vista volume activation failure, on July 10, 2007 at 11:10am, said:
[...] There’s more information about this error in Microsoft knowledge base article 938107 and Christian Mohn has blogged about a similar experience he had with Windows Vista Business Edition req.... [...]
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HvK, on September 18, 2008 at 3:10pm, said:
Thank you for the article. I am new to this type of licensing. It worked this morning on one of my computers.
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