From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Windows Product Activation
is a service built into all versions of
Windows
from
Windows XP
and
Windows Server 2003
above to stop people downloading pirated copies. The user has 30 days to activate Windows and after 30 days, the computer will not run properly until it is activated.
When Windows is first installed, there will be a little icon on the screen with a message asking for Windows to be activated.
Then an activation wizard will appear and the user has 2 options on activating Windows. Activation could be done on the Internet, or on the telephone. The quickest way to activate is by the Internet, but if that fails, then the user would need to call Microsoft for the activation ID. The activation ID would be read by the representative and then the user would type in the key on the activation Wizard screen.