SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A bug in Microsoft's activation server has led to pandemonium among people trying to activate or re-activate their Windows 10 Pro licenses. No need to panic. Microsoft will fix it "within one to two business days." (Try telling your boss that.)
If you see a bogus report about an invalid Win10 Pro license, relax. It's just Microsoft's servers screwing up, again, and everything should be copacetic in a couple of days.
On Twitter, Windows leaker emeritus Faikee posted this screenshot:
[...] There's also a lengthy diatribe on Reddit.
[...] The only breath of hope that I've found comes from the Microsoft Answers Forum, where Daniel Randy quotes a Live Agent response as saying:
Thank you for sharing, Daniel. Microsoft has just released an Emerging issue announcement about current activation issue related to Pro edition recently. This happens in Japan, Korea, American and many other countries. I am very sorry to inform you that there is a temporary issue with Microsoft's activation server at the moment and some customers might experience this issue where Windows is displayed as not activated.
Our engineers are working tirelessly to resolve this issue and it is expected to be corrected within one to two business days, Daniel.
But Ask Woody says it's fixed now:
I followed the updated troubleshooting steps posted by João Carrasqueira on Neowin and, bada-boom bada-bang, it’s all activated now. The Steps:
- Click Start > Settings > Update & Security
- On the left choose Activation
- Under the top section, click Troubleshoot
(Score: 2, Interesting) by maggotbrain on Saturday November 10 2018, @03:35AM
This is very true and why I won't be using an OS that relies on external license servers for use.
Personal anecdote:
About ten+ years ago, I worked with a company that developed a music purchasing and sample service for Amazon(This was prior to them developing a music service in-house). All of the music was wrapped in DRM and relied upon DRM authorization servers.
I had, probably, about 50 or so music files (all .wma) in my collection that I used for testing, at the time.
Once Amazon decided to go off and develop their own service, they turned off the DRM servers.
Instantly, those songs were no longer able to be played (unless I _may_ have had a personal tool to strip the DRM and convert the files). While the service was relatively small, it still managed to sell ~1 million music tracks. They all become unplayable once that DRM server was shut off.
As a purchasing 'consumer' who uses one of these services, I would be PISSED, if the license servers just disappeared one day when the company folds or its priorites changed.