- Messages
- 282
- Location
- Sunnyvale, CA USA
In the early morning of Aug 21, 2013 I saw a full screen desktop image saying in a big blue background: "Activate Windows".
I had activated Windows 8 Pro on Dec 25, 2012 and installed the Windows 8 Media Center Pack upgrade on Jan 7, 2013. I had one product code/key for Win 8 Pro and another for Win 8 Pro with Media Center. I had no licensing problems during this time and only one hardware change - a new DVD drive to replace a broken one a few months ago.
When I went to the System Control Panel it showed no product id and when I looked at the event viewer it showed several licensing errors:
The first error was:
Event 1017 Security-SPP:Installation of the Proof of Purchase failed. 0xC004F061
The next was:
Event 8211 Security-SPP:Update Windows license and product key tokens failed with 0xC004F061.
The next was:
Event 8228 Security-SPP:The rules engine failed to evaluate the rules. Reason:0xC004F011 Stage:GATHER_RULES_FROM_LICENSES
When I tried to reactivate Windows via the Activation screen, it told me it could not do that - try later. I restarted and tried again - same message. So I clicked on the other link on that screen - the MS customer support line and called Windows support.
I spoke with someone who tried a few things via remote desktop (msdt.exe was one of them). He poked in some activation data and it required a restart. When I restarted there was no real change - just a different error message:
Event 8198 Security-SPP: License Activation (slui.exe) failed with the following error code: hr=0xC004C008
I called back and got another fellow who tried similar things with no change and he transferred me to the MS Store.
The MS store fellows tried a few things to no avail and transferred me to a 'Level 2' guy and I was assigned a case number.
Level 2 guy (via remote desktop) made some registry changes and asked me to re-install Windows 8 from my install DVD. I told him I had made many customizations to Windows 8: custom locations to the Desktop, paging files, Windows Search, etc. He told me (basically) not to worry.
The re-install took about an hour and he hung up when it started and called me back after a half-hour when it was still going on and then again shortly after it completed.
After the re-install I went through the customization settings and found that my drives were enumerated differently which messed up most of my user folders. I had set up a J drive which located all my user folders (that is, the libraries were moved via the library 'Locate' context menu. That drive had a volume name of 'Jim' but it was now the K: drive. My old K: drive was now the L: drive. In fact I had all the drive letters from A-L except for J which was skipped for some reason. (I have a lot of drives).
After I renamed K->J and L->K and rebooted, my desktop and user files were back to normal. Will drive letters ever go away?
But there were many other problems - a device was not installed, the Classic Start button settings were messed up, the User pinned taskbar entries were lost and my custom toolbars were missing.
I had to set up Chrome again and some services and so on. Windows update found 64 new updates to download (I had been up-to-date).
I am still trying various programs and functions to see what still needs to be done. I've lost a lot of time and my system backups and image are probably now worthless since I have a different license code.
It may take a another few days to get things back to the way they were before my license became 'inactive'.
I don't know why this occurred and none of these people gave me a convincing reason why it happened.
I had activated Windows 8 Pro on Dec 25, 2012 and installed the Windows 8 Media Center Pack upgrade on Jan 7, 2013. I had one product code/key for Win 8 Pro and another for Win 8 Pro with Media Center. I had no licensing problems during this time and only one hardware change - a new DVD drive to replace a broken one a few months ago.
When I went to the System Control Panel it showed no product id and when I looked at the event viewer it showed several licensing errors:
The first error was:
Event 1017 Security-SPP:Installation of the Proof of Purchase failed. 0xC004F061
The next was:
Event 8211 Security-SPP:Update Windows license and product key tokens failed with 0xC004F061.
The next was:
Event 8228 Security-SPP:The rules engine failed to evaluate the rules. Reason:0xC004F011 Stage:GATHER_RULES_FROM_LICENSES
When I tried to reactivate Windows via the Activation screen, it told me it could not do that - try later. I restarted and tried again - same message. So I clicked on the other link on that screen - the MS customer support line and called Windows support.
I spoke with someone who tried a few things via remote desktop (msdt.exe was one of them). He poked in some activation data and it required a restart. When I restarted there was no real change - just a different error message:
Event 8198 Security-SPP: License Activation (slui.exe) failed with the following error code: hr=0xC004C008
I called back and got another fellow who tried similar things with no change and he transferred me to the MS Store.
The MS store fellows tried a few things to no avail and transferred me to a 'Level 2' guy and I was assigned a case number.
Level 2 guy (via remote desktop) made some registry changes and asked me to re-install Windows 8 from my install DVD. I told him I had made many customizations to Windows 8: custom locations to the Desktop, paging files, Windows Search, etc. He told me (basically) not to worry.
The re-install took about an hour and he hung up when it started and called me back after a half-hour when it was still going on and then again shortly after it completed.
After the re-install I went through the customization settings and found that my drives were enumerated differently which messed up most of my user folders. I had set up a J drive which located all my user folders (that is, the libraries were moved via the library 'Locate' context menu. That drive had a volume name of 'Jim' but it was now the K: drive. My old K: drive was now the L: drive. In fact I had all the drive letters from A-L except for J which was skipped for some reason. (I have a lot of drives).
After I renamed K->J and L->K and rebooted, my desktop and user files were back to normal. Will drive letters ever go away?
But there were many other problems - a device was not installed, the Classic Start button settings were messed up, the User pinned taskbar entries were lost and my custom toolbars were missing.
I had to set up Chrome again and some services and so on. Windows update found 64 new updates to download (I had been up-to-date).
I am still trying various programs and functions to see what still needs to be done. I've lost a lot of time and my system backups and image are probably now worthless since I have a different license code.
It may take a another few days to get things back to the way they were before my license became 'inactive'.
I don't know why this occurred and none of these people gave me a convincing reason why it happened.
My Computer
System One
-
- OS
- Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Center (64-bit)
- Computer type
- PC/Desktop
- System Manufacturer/Model
- Custom-build
- CPU
- Intel Core i7-2600K @ 4.3 GHz
- Motherboard
- ASUS P8P67 PRO Rev 3.0
- Memory
- 16 GB G.SKILL Ripjaws X DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1600 (4 banks 4GB DIMM DDR3 8-8-8-24 5-32-12-7 1T 1.5V)
- Graphics Card(s)
- NVIDIA GeForce GT 440
- Sound Card
- Firewire Focusrite Saffire Pro 14
- Monitor(s) Displays
- LG W2353V
- Screen Resolution
- 1920x1080
- Hard Drives
- 2 of Seagate Barracuda XT ST32000641AS (2TB ea.);
1 of Seagate Barracuda Green ST2000DL003 (2TB);
1 of Hitachi Deskstar HDS722020ALA330 (2TB);
2 of Seagate Desktop ST4000DM000-1F2168 (4TB)
- PSU
- Corsair AX850 Gold
- Case
- Cooler Master HAF 932 Advanced
- Cooling
- ThermalTake Silent 1156
- Keyboard
- Logitech K520
- Mouse
- Logitech M310
- Internet Speed
- 7Mbps
- Browser
- Chrome
- Antivirus
- Kaspersky
- Other Info
- Event Studio Precision 6 powered audio monitors;
Boston Acoustics CS Sub 10 Powered Subwoofer;
NI Kore controller;
NI Maschine controller;
M-Audio Axiom 61 keyboard controller; expression pedal; sustain pedal;
... and tons of audio software ...
I also keep two USB 3 thumb drives (A: and B:) attached with boot recovery and security stuff that I can boot into from BIOS in case of emergency