Solved Yesterday's update trashed all of my Microsoft activations

I don't know how this happened, and our IT department doesn't know either. I had a very very long update yesterday, over two hours, and when it was finally finished my copy of Windows, MS Office, Visio, and Visual Studio were no longer activated. I have been able to reactivate everything but Windows.

Windows says that the digital key is not on my machine at all, and I have been trying everything I can do to get it activated, short of calling MS, which doesn't seem to be an option. This PC has been activated for about ten years with various Windows versions (7 -> 10 -> 11) and has been fully OK the whole time. I don't get it, but it looks like I am going to have to buy a new product key. Rah, rah, MS updates.

I offer this as a cautionary tale. I hope this doesn't happen to any of you out there.

Yet another reason, not to run 24H2, in my books.

I'm hearing no end, of such woeful tales, regarding this version.

Meanwhile 23H2 is just sailing, on my "officially incompatible", hardware..

Isn't there a backup image you can restore from? I imagine that IT departments do backups nightly.

Silvio said:

Yet another reason, not to run 24H2, in my books.

I'm hearing no end, of such woeful tales, regarding this version.

Meanwhile 23H2 is just sailing, on my "officially incompatible", hardware..

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100% agree. Our Win11 laptop is locked on 23H2 and will stay there unless and until.

Catnip said:

I don't know how this happened, and our IT department doesn't know either. I had a very very long update yesterday, over two hours, and when it was finally finished my copy of Windows, MS Office, Visio, and Visual Studio were no longer activated. I have been able to reactivate everything but Windows.

Windows says that the digital key is not on my machine at all, and I have been trying everything I can do to get it activated, short of calling MS, which doesn't seem to be an option. This PC has been activated for about ten years with various Windows versions (7 -> 10 -> 11) and has been fully OK the whole time. I don't get it, but it looks like I am going to have to buy a new product key. Rah, rah, MS updates.

I offer this as a cautionary tale. I hope this doesn't happen to any of you out there.

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I like @wiganken idea best. Seems like it would be the most robust choice. Then try to find out what updates MS says you need and what killed you off.

Meanwhile, there's a program called produkey.exe that you can get from Nirsoft. Been around for years... it will pull all your product keys. I like to keep a list. Especially handy if you need to reinstall and hate typing those keys.

It would be interesting to know if it shows your MS Win 11 key and/or whether it would work if you just input it again. FYI - it will cause a tizzy in your A/V program when it runs but it's OK to run it. They places it looks are typically considered off limits.

If you're stuck buying a key, Stack Social will sell you one for Windows Pro for $15 right now. It's legit and they're a legit MS reseller.

Levitate11 said:

program called produkey.exe

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There's also ShowKeyPlus. It's portable, so no installation.

Catnip said:

I had a very very long update yesterday

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Only updates yesterday were Insider Builds. Are you on a Insider Build?

Silvio said:

Yet another reason, not to run 24H2, in my books.

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Where is your evidence that the OP's issues are specifically caused by 24H2?

I've allowed Patch Tuesday installing of 24H2 on 2 Desktops and a few Notebooks, no issues with them. Earliest was in mid-December, latest last week.

There is obviously other underlying issues for something this dramatic to happen. I wonder from where the OP purchased the de-activated products?

The knee-jerk panic reaction of espousing the blanket blocking of 24H2 is totally unjustified and is ignorance based conspiracy-theory riddled scare-mongering

idgat said:

There is obviously other underlying issues for something this dramatic to happen. I wonder from where the OP purchased the de-activated products?

The knee-jerk panic reaction of espousing the blanket blocking of 24H2 is totally unjustified and is ignorance based conspiracy-theory riddled scare-mongering

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I agree completely.

I purchased the software direct from a local hardware shop years ago. It all came in official MS approved packaging. In other words, it is fully legitimate.

I have been running 24H2 for months with no problems at all, and I find it hard to believe that this is a problem with 24H2 as the cause. I had been away from the office for a couple of weeks with the PC turned off. When I turned it on this morning it went through an update cycle like I expected, because the machine was off for patch Tuesday. The only problem is that the update took over two hours and it seemed like it was a feature update as the PC restarted several times. When all was said and done, all of my MS software had been deactivated. I am not on an insider build.

I was able to reactivate Visual Studio, MS Office and Visio with no difficulty, but my Windows install had no key on the PC anymore. Looking with ShowKeyPlus showed no key at all. Putting in the original key did not work as MS said it had been used on another device (yes, the PC I was trying to fix). The IT department finally got the key to rearm and I now have a working PC again.

I shared this not as a "woe is me" or a "24H2 is the devil" thread, but possibly as a heads up that this strange behaviour might happen to someone else. I was also hoping that someone here might have an idea on how to fix it.

If that was a problem for some people, I am not going to apologize.

just as a suggestion.
have you checked your Microsoft account to see how many PC's are attached to your account.
i have just checked my MS account and found two PC's attached to my account
when i only have the one PC. i removed an older one so now there is only one PC registered.

best of luck, Steve ..

Levitate11 said:

I like @wiganken idea best. Seems like it would be the most robust choice. Then try to find out what updates MS says you need and what killed you off.

Meanwhile, there's a program called produkey.exe that you can get from Nirsoft. Been around for years... it will pull all your product keys. I like to keep a list. Especially handy if you need to reinstall and hate typing those keys.

It would be interesting to know if it shows your MS Win 11 key and/or whether it would work if you just input it again. FYI - it will cause a tizzy in your A/V program when it runs but it's OK to run it. They places it looks are typically considered off limits.

If you're stuck buying a key, Stack Social will sell you one for Windows Pro for $15 right now. It's legit and they're a legit MS reseller.

Click to expand...

Beware Defender blocks that download from Nirsoft as a virus!

You're not alone

Same thing happened recently to me (with a PRO key that's been on the upgrade path from Win7 - 8 - 10 - 11). Note, it first happened on my machine when I used the "REPAIR WINDOWS with Windows Updates" option back on 23h2. It did it again when clean installing 24h2 even tho I was certain my license was linked to my MS account (see screenshot).
Both times it happened the activation troubleshooter directed me to a buying a new key as did chatting with an MS agent. I double-checked my MS account linked devices, ms store logins, and cleared everything (including cloud backup settings) hoping it was a weird activation troubleshooter bug. Nothing worked.
Luckily I found an old print-out of my Windows 7 PRO key I made using Belarc Advisor years ago and entered that and worked without issue. Activated with a digital license LINKED to my microsoft account. Since this has happened twice, I assume it will always happen whenever I reset/clean install/major update so I've got my key convieniently in my password manager now.
I hope you can find your ancient key like I was able to! I'm unsure why the microsoft servers hate digital license but it could be anything. Custom PC with no serial? MSA passwordless login bug? Account aliases/sign in options?

Popular google results assume it's from using previous "unofficial isos" or "unsupported methods" to upgrade to windows 11 when that's not been the case here.Consider sending feedback in the hub - I did so maybe they'll figure it out by 2034.