Thursday, November 8th 2018
Microsoft Investigating Bug that Deactivates Windows 10 Pro Licenses
As if the missing files bug with Windows 10 version 1809 was not enough, Microsoft has more on their plate to tackle with some reports coming from consumers that their Windows 10 Pro digital license was suddenly showing up as deactivated. This was reported by multiple Reddit users first, in an account that seemed to not be restricted to any specific region either. Indeed, many of the affected got further notices by the OS that the license was for Windows 10 Home instead, and that they had to now install that specific variant.
To their credit, Microsoft were quick to take notice of this obvious bug and one of their support team members went on to say that "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." This was followed up by a statement from Jeff Jones, a senior director at the company, who went on to say "A limited number of customers experienced an activation issue that our engineers have now addressed. Affected customers will see resolution over the next 24 hours as the solution is applied automatically. In the meantime, they can continue to use Windows 10 Pro as usual."
If you happen to have this issue, try out the activation troubleshooter to see if the update was applied, and that should help resolve the bug.
Source:
Windows Support
To their credit, Microsoft were quick to take notice of this obvious bug and one of their support team members went on to say that "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." This was followed up by a statement from Jeff Jones, a senior director at the company, who went on to say "A limited number of customers experienced an activation issue that our engineers have now addressed. Affected customers will see resolution over the next 24 hours as the solution is applied automatically. In the meantime, they can continue to use Windows 10 Pro as usual."
If you happen to have this issue, try out the activation troubleshooter to see if the update was applied, and that should help resolve the bug.
47 Comments on Microsoft Investigating Bug that Deactivates Windows 10 Pro Licenses
how it fixed it later on, hit "Activate Now" > "Troubleshoot"
Anyways, I ended up getting on the Microsoft Tech Support chat and went through this hour long process where the guy remoted in and did his thing and the issue was never fixed. I was basically told that I had two options, I could reinstall Windows 8 and then follow a special URL link he gave me to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, or I could purchase a copy of Windows 10 again. I was like, yeah right, I will deal with that tomorrow.
I am glad that Microsoft recognized this as a bug. I just went in and checked, and magically, my copy of Windows 10 Pro is activated and I didn't have to do anything.
EDIT: Nevermind, Microsoft's servers are acting up...
answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-suddenly-deactivated/fe9a4ecf-2e2a-491d-a43e-b010c316d1c4?auth=1
bugfeature:If you use MS live and have setup account with password the new update overwrites the local password to the cloud password.
And your local password doesn't work anymore.
If you have multiple windows licenses registered to your cloud user than all windows will have the same password suddenly.
Don't be surprised if this happens to you. Cloud is the future - different passwords are the past. :)
Don'tcha just love how Microsoft can just reach into your computer from afar and fiddle around with it at will? Or just pull the network cable out of it. :D But then you have no internet. :eek:
next day(today) still not activated but I could press activate and fixed.
I have a paid version but I haven’t booted it in weeks
It's hilarious that Microsoft needed a bug to undo the work of pirates, I was thinking that finally one of their updates could check if the activation was genuine or not.
Just another black mark against DRMed black box software, and another instance where the warez version works better then the official version.