Windows Vista being a bit funny with hardware

[FAXA]

Hi

I'm having a few troubles with my computer at the moment and i'm not sure whether its a hardware or software problem.

Vista, for some reason, thinks that i've changed my motherboard and its giving me three days to re-activate. How do i do this??

Also, its deleted my Sony Ericsson Phone drivers for no apparent reason, and sometimes fails to detect my Sony DVD-RW drive (although i can simply restart it and the DVD drive works fine).

I hope thats adequate information.

Thanks for reading - FAXA.

[FatForester]

Generally changing your motherboard without reinstalling Windows is bad idea. You'll probably want to back up all of your data, and start from scratch for the best stability. You COULD try and fix it as it is, but by the time you do that, you probably could have just redone everything.

[FAXA]

I haven't changed my motherboard.

[WhiteLotus]

have you taken it apart to clean it or anything? it would be very strange for an OS to just suddenly not recognise something. just a thought maybe a virus?

[peach1971]

Vista bug forces legit users to reactivate OS
Microsoft said the reactivation flaw crops up when a program running with administrative credentials removes a system setting. That in turn can trigger the failure of a
BIOS validation check, which is part of the activation process.

Messages on the Vista Validation Issues forum indicate that in some situations, the only solution to the problem is to activate the operating system via the telephone. Users opting for that approach should enter "slui 4" in a command box to display the opening prompts for Microsoft's automated phone activation system.
http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9011858
http://forums.microsoft.com/Genuine/ShowForum.aspx?ForumID=1004&SiteID=25

[FAXA]

Thanks for all the replies. I guess I'll spend tonight on the phone to microsoft.

If i re-installed XP (it was the original OS for my system), would that think there was a new motherboard?

[peach1971]

If i re-installed XP (it was the original OS for my system), would that think there was a new motherboard? No. :)

[erocker]

No, but if you switched back to XP you would get rid of all the Vista problems.