Yesterday, for no reason I can fathom, my tablet PC decided to require ‘activation’.

‘Activation’ is Microsoft’s way of ensuring that your copy of Windows is licensed.  I know my copy is licensed because I installed it myself, and I put in the license key from my MSDN subscription (valid for 5 PCs simultaneously, currently running on 3).

I did this installation nearly a year ago – around the 4th January 2008.  I waited a few days to make sure the installation was sound, then I activated it over the internet.

I’ve added no new hardware or drivers lately (although there were quite a few Microsoft Updates recently).  I’m really baffled why it has started requiring activation now.

But it gets worse.  It wouldn’t activate over the internet.  This is the normal no-hassle (or at least minimal-hassle) way, but it refused to work for me.

So today I followed the instructions for activating by phone.  I phoned the 0800 number, went through lots of button pushes, got to the stage where I had to enter the installation ID, then had a problem.  All I could see for the installation ID was 123456789, very spaced out.  So when it asked for the first 6 digits of the installation ID, I entered 123456.

It didn’t like that, and told me I’d made an error.  And to try again.  (Pompous bloody software – I’m not the one that made the error.)

So I did.  And again.  Eventually it offered me the opportunity to speak to a CSR.  I’m guessing that’s ‘customer service representative’.  So I selected this option and got to speak to a bloke in India.

I tried explaining the situation to him.  He said unfortunately their servers were down, so he couldn’t help me right now.  I should phone back in 30 minutes.  I asked for a direct number to call instead of the directed rigmarole I got through the normal number.  He gave me an international freephone number to call that would take me straight to the correct group.

I phoned back in half an hour.  The international freephone turned out to go through the exact same rigmarole as the original freephone number.  The Indian girl I spoke to said their servers were down and I should phone back in 30 minutes.  I said I was told that last time too.

Both were wonderfully apologetic and utterly useless.

I phoned back in another half an hour.  This time their servers were up!  Hooray!  And then I found out that they still couldn’t help me!  Boo!

I inferred from this new Indian bloke I eventually spoke to that there was supposed to be a long ‘installation ID’ underneath the spaced-out 123456789 numbers.  On my tablet it’s completely blank.  I have no installation ID, and I have no idea why.

To make matters even more ludicrous, the new Indian bloke also said that no-one there had been trained to handle this situation and that I should phone the tech support helpline.  It’s an 0870 number (so Microsoft profits from it the longer I’m on), and it’s not open.  It’s a Monday-to-Friday service.

So, I can’t use my legitimately-purchased operating system purely because of a problem with their anti-piracy measures.

Bastards.

I’m really quite annoyed about that.