It popped up in the lower-right corner of my screen. It may be a minor bobble. It may be a problem:
"Activate Windows
Go to Settings to activate Windows"
Just a little watermark. Microsoft tells me it happens (though not exactly why it would happen without having made major changes to the computer, which I have not). And activation should be a snap -- the computer's got a "digital license" stored inside, plus the Product Key sticker. Running the Troubleshooter even gives me a handy-dandy button to click that should Fix Everything.
But is my copy of Windows 10 legit? This is a refurbished computer, purchased through Amazon but done by some small vendor. It would be an odd thing for it to have been smoked out only now, after several years of use, but not impossible.
So this could be fun. For a given value of "fun." I'm going to noodle around a little more and decide if I want to pull the pin right now or not.
Have you considered using Linux instead? Or are you stuck with some mandatory program that only works in Billy's sandbox???
ReplyDeleteI run a *nix derivative on my Raspberry Pi machines -- but things I need for work and writing are Windows-native.
ReplyDeleteIt's very useful for my work to be familiar with all widely-used operating systems and hardware. So I have a MacBook Air, iPads, a Windows desktop, laptop and Surface Pro, and a Pi or two. (Basically, I need to be able to use 'em without fumbling when non-technical co-workers have problems: there's a significant element of inculcating confidence in users to the kinds of tech support that are part of my job.)
I've had three re-furbished machines, and each one had a sticker on it attesting to legitimacy of installed Windows. I never knew, for sure, that it was legitimate; but, so far, no problems after several years.
ReplyDeleteThis happened to me with known-legit Windows 7 box, and none of the resets I found worked as it had with other machines. I would have done a clean install, but that would have cost me my Office Suite.
ReplyDeleteBill Gates wanted more money to reinstall both.
Linux does all the heavy lifting around my house now, but I can see why you have to have a MS machine for work.
We've had a couple of Win 7 machines throw the Activation thing recently. Both were licensed under our corporate volume license. I applied a registry hack to reset the activation warning counter temporarily. We'll see how it goes.
ReplyDeleteYou're right about keeping familiar with the different platforms, although I lean heavily on our graphics director for weird Mac issues, although much less now that we've drifted from FCP to Premiere on Windows for video editing.