re-activation after crash

My power source and hard drive crashed and were replaced. The computer shop
put on a home basic version of Vista. I had bought the Home Premium. I used
the key to upgrade but now I'm told I can't activate it because the key is
already in use. What gives? Please help. Thank you.

You can get started with phone activation by typing "slui.exe 4"
(w/o the quotes) in the Start Search box in the Start Menu and pressing
Enter.
The phone activation process takes about 6 minutes.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

---------------------------------------------------------------

"Tucker" <Tucker@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:240005EC-4DC7-414B-BF71-FD2026B313EA@microsoft.com...
My power source and hard drive crashed and were replaced. The computer shop
put on a home basic version of Vista. I had bought the Home Premium. I used
the key to upgrade but now I'm told I can't activate it because the key is
already in use. What gives? Please help. Thank you.

"Tucker" <Tucker@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:240005EC-4DC7-414B-BF71-FD2026B313EA@microsoft.com...
> My power source and hard drive crashed and were replaced. The computer
> shop
> put on a home basic version of Vista. I had bought the Home Premium. I
> used
> the key to upgrade but now I'm told I can't activate it because the key is
> already in use. What gives? Please help. Thank you.


What gives? The computer shop didn't really have business doing that. They
are taking a little bit of a liberty doing that. Find your own Windows Vista
Home Premium disc and take it and your computer back to the shop and have
them install it on your harddrive. If you do not have a disc, I'm sure the
guys at the shop can find a way of getting Home Premium on there.
Thereafter, you can activate either online, or, if refused there, by phone.

By phone you may have to wait until you get a live person before you can
activate, so it might take a few minutes to go through the automated phone
activation process, get refused again there, then drop through to a live
person who will give you the numbers.

Saucy

Thanks for the help. I'm activated now.

"Carey Frisch [MVP]" wrote:

> You can get started with phone activation by typing "slui.exe 4"
> (w/o the quotes) in the Start Search box in the Start Menu and pressing
> Enter.
> The phone activation process takes about 6 minutes.
>
> --
> Carey Frisch
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows Shell/User
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>
> "Tucker" <Tucker@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message news:240005EC-4DC7-414B-BF71-FD2026B313EA@microsoft.com...
> My power source and hard drive crashed and were replaced. The computer shop
> put on a home basic version of Vista. I had bought the Home Premium. I used
> the key to upgrade but now I'm told I can't activate it because the key is
> already in use. What gives? Please help. Thank you.