My main computer is a fully legitimate ACER machine running W7 32bit OEM – as installed by the manufacturer.
I’ve been using it daily for some years now, but just this week it has begun accusing me of running counterfeit Windows. There have been no hardware changes, just the usual Windows software updates. It is fully patched. If I click START, then right-click COMPUTER and PROPERTIES the screen tells me “Windows is Activated”.
After simply closing the accusatory pop-up a few times I thought I’d try getting rid of the annoyance by clicking “Resolve Online Now”.
That doesn’t work.
In Firefox the screen doesn’t render properly. In IE it renders, but clicking on the resolve-online option just takes me to an FAQ page on Activation.
I suppose i can keep on closing the popup until whatever is causing it either goes away or else ups the ante.
I’d like to sort it out properly though; I can do without black desktops or whatever else Windows will throw at me in escalation because I’m mistaken as a felon.
Am I alone in seeing this behaviour? Is it something that Microsoft has broken with a recent patch?
I note Susan Bradley’s current Patch Watch mentions 3167679 – A Windows Authentication patch issued 08-09. On my machine it is shown as successfully installed on August 11th (having failed to install on the 10th).
Alsy
