Originally Posted by Poseidon
F.Y.I.
On a side note I too have run across this annoyance on several occasions. Thing is, the NAV OEM software the customer purchased came from me as part of a software bundle I included on the purchase of the custom built computer. So, I know the software is 100% legit.
The first couple of times I also tried the patches posted on Symantec's site,(DonJ posted above), in addition to the normal, repair utilities, uninstall - complete removal utility, to no avail. To resolve the issue, I ended up talking to tech support at Symantec and they do not issue a new key, but rather re-activate the existing key taking note of my information, the hardware specs and any serial numbers and/or tracking codes I personally assign to the machines I build.
Now whenever I run across this problem, I immediately call Symantec and go through the key re-activation process with out wasting time with the patches and reinstall process.
btw - in case you are wondering, when the key is re-activated the original install date is not compromised, even after a format and clean install of the OS.
During the past couple of months I am starting to see this problem more and more - including machines that were purchased from another store such as CompUsa or BestBuy. So far in these particular cases, NAV has been limited to the 2005 version, so I usually end up either selling them NAV 2006 (retail box) with a discount, the amount depending on the time left on their current subscription, or talking them into buying AVG Professional/Firewall edition. Sure, doing this I may loose a couple of dollars on the sale of some software, but I also gain a new customer.
Another thing I have noticed is the problem seems to be, (or at least to me anyhow), limited to OEM versions of NAV. Also, in almost all the cases I’ve seen, the problem occurred on the next reboot following a windows update. - go figure.