Original Equipment Manufacturers: A company that builds products or components that are used in products sold by another company.

When you try to activate Windows Vista on a computer that was obtained from an OEM, you experience one of the following symptoms.

Symptom 1
You receive one of the following error messages:

• Error message 1
  

  Error Code: Invalid Volume License Key
  In order to activate, you need to change your product key to a valid Multiple Activation Key (MAK) or Retail key.
  You must have a qualifying operating system license AND a Volume license Windows Vista upgrade license, or a full license for Windows Vista through an OEM or from a retail source .
  ANY OTHER INSTALLATION OF THIS SOFTWARE IS IN VIOLATION OF YOUR AGREEMENT AND APPLICABLE COPYRIGHT LAW.

• Error message 2
  

  Error Code: 0xC004F059
  Description: The Software Licensing Service reported that a license in the computer BIOS is invalid.

Symptom 2
You receive the following error message:

Error Code: 0xc004f035
The Software Licensing Service reported that the computer could not be activated with a Volume license product key. Volume licensed systems require upgrading from a qualified operating system. Please contact your system administrator or use a different type of key.

This behavior occurs when the following conditions are true:

• You are using the Key Management Service (KMS) to perform activation.
• The computer uses an ACPI_SLIC table in the computer BIOS program.

Note: An ACPI_SLIC table is used by an Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI)-compliant BIOS program to store Software Licensing description information.

Through it’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) blog, Microsoft today provided information about it’s take on the OEM BIOS activation hack. The post ends a bit abruptly, not fully delivering what they promised. Keep reading →