Windows 10: Win 10 Activation failed (Error code: 0xC004C003)

I have this same screen as the attached picture...
If this is indeed a generic key (which I have the same last digits of as well) I believe we are indeed screwed.

I called Microsoft.
Apparently, after you upgraded from your old OS, you were supposed to go into the Activation settings and manually hit the activate button, and possibly even have to sign into a Microsoft account. Your Windows 10 product key is tied to your mobo's BIOS, and this is what triggered that pairing...
If you were like me and you thought Windows was smarter than that, you took that generic key given before activation and tried to use it on a brand new clean installation.
You were also to NOT enter a product key during the Windows 10 clean installation, and were to wait until you got into the Desktop to later activate it...

I was told I would NOT get a unblocked key unless I reinstalled my valid version of Windows 8.1, updated it all the way until the latest update, and then upgraded to Windows 10 AGAIN. Then manually activated it in the upgraded 10 installation, then clean installed onto the PC, without activating until I got the the desktop and activated it in the setting manually using to product key...
These are some crazy hoops to jump through. I jumped through them all, and tripped through the steps apparently.

What the actual F\/<k Windows?
Time to grab either a $20 HDD and waste 4-5 hours doing this all over again or pay up $119.99 for a windows 10 license...

If anyone else hears or discovers otherwise, please let us know!

 

I will do a clean install of Windows 7 and then upgrade to Windows 10 over the weekend. These hoops really do suck.

 

Im made a post about this yesterday
y Microsoft told me because I upgraded via the media creation tool was reason my key was blocked I also had the same key in the screenshot above the only way to resolve is to rollback back to previous os reserve copy again and wait for win 10 to download on its own you then get notification its ready only then ur win 7\8 key is ready to be converted to a win 10 key I did the whole wait 48 hour thing and spent hours on chat and phone to ms

 

It seems Microsoft dropped the bomb again, the issue with the activation of windows 10 should have been an easy fix... actually it just shouldn't have happened in the first place. And then to tell us we might have to buy a new key....wrong answer, if the OS is suppose to be free why would you pay for a new key? I did a clean install with no problems, until it came to the activation part and as with everyone else I got the error message that said my key has been blocked, why when I was using it before the clean install? I've read many forum post on this issue and have yet to find an answer, except to go back to windows 8.1 and just wait for Microsoft to get their act together. Waiting 24 to 48 hours for the activation servers to kick was also a waste of time, it did nothing. It's now been over 96 hours and still can't get it to activate. To anyone who might have a solution, I"m willing to try anything, except to start over, way too much trouble.

 

Hello,

I Used the Media Creation Tool from Microsoft to Upgrade the OS and all went smooth, the activation went ok.

The Drive partition were changed by the Upgrade progress, there was a secondary Hidden System Recovery applied; so i decided to run a Clean Installation of Windows 10 (Clean means Format from media, Partitions scheme from scratch).
During a Clean install Windows 10 create a reserved system partition of 500MB (windows 8 creates a 350MB), all went smooth and the activation was done after loggin in whit my Microsoft account.

I had some problem locating which drivers to use for a good build before rolling out all the other software I use; and ofc i had to stop the auto updates to fix problems with the synaptics software being overwritten by the windows update; so in short i made several clean installations, all of them went ok and activated, all but the latest(yesterday), the latest was unable to activate.(edited for clarification)

I tried everything i found on the web without success, and i checked the page on my microsoft account and i found a problem(I think), there were 2 instances of the laptop registered and not one, both with different hostnames(its random named you got from the installation); so i thought there was a problem on activation caused by the clean installations, and i made a full reinstallation process from windows 8 pro > 8.1 pro > upgrade to windows 10 and now the OS is activated again; before the reinstallation I removed the registered devices from the Microsoft account page.

I made attention this time to the hostname i gave to the laptop(weird, I thought microsoft just bind the licence to the hardware, I'm just confused) and now its enlisted correctly on the account.

The system is now back on my controll and activated, I have 2 reserved partition, 1 of 350MB from windows 8 installation process, and a new 450MB reserved partition from the upgrade.

Before trying again a clean install i would like to know(if somebody knows) if the DVD i just created days ago is not bind-created for the old upgrade or its just a RAW installation media that could be used again, or I need to recreate the DVD by running again the media creation tool inside the Windows 10 OS already activated.

I want to reinstall and have Windows to get its 500MB reserved without any need of extra partitions, and of corse i will install by using a local account, using the same localhost(computer-name) used for the upgrade; then switch to the Microsoft Account at the very end.

Edited:
I have started a Clean installation on my laptop, on the partition scheme i see the second reserved partition added at the system Upgrade to Windows 10, its 450 MB labeled as OEM (Reserved) while the 350 is labeled System; I had all the partition removed and its installing(fingers crossed).

 

Windows 10 Pro here activates succesfully.

 

Seeing the same error code but the cause is different.
My Windows 10 was activated but now the activation status got REVOKED!

Windows Insider since Day 1 but my Surface Pro 3 had never installed W10 before July 29th. On 29th I took the upgrade offer on the SP3 and upgraded to W10 from 8.1. It was automatically ACTIVATED. Then I went ahead, created an ISO and did a complete clean install. After the installation the W10 was ACTIVATED automatically again. Woo-hoo! Sounds great huh?

Last night I was prompted that the W10 on SP3 was not activated. What? The activation status got revoked. When I go to Settings->Activation, the error code in the title of this thread is what I see. Phone activation does not work, though MS representative told me to wait for 48 hours; however having read all related threads and posts here I don't think waiting is a good solution to that.

Certainly don't have the time to do a re-upgrade and installation again; don't know what to do other than calling MS support.

I do like Windows 10, but it is really hard to accept how Microsoft screws everything into a mess.

 

I upgrade to Windows 7 to Windows 10 via USB installation media that I made with the media creation tool. When I first got on and pressed activate and got the error 0xC004C003. After about 20-30mins it activated by its self. Then I did a clean install, it has been almost 24hrs and it has still not activated I've restarted my computer and done slmgr.vbs -rearm and slmgr.vbs -ato.

Is there anything I can do, besides wait? Please don't tell me I should revert to Win 7 and try again, I've started the Win 10 upgrade process 7 times so far because of a mistake and another error.

 

Mr. Olbivion, did yours ever activate?

 

so you are saying that you delete the device from MS account and then it was able to activate?

 

NO, the OS wasnt able to reactivate itself, I had to reformat evrything and reinstall all from scrath with win 8 and all the way to a new upgrade to win 10, and after all the activation went ok.

I removed the devices before reinstalling evrything from scratch.(i removed the device also while trying to activate but it doesnt made any difference)

I made also 2 clean installs after that and the activation is almost instant after I logged in the Microsoft account, I made sure to remove the devices enlisted in the microsoft account, because there were 2 instances of the same device which is unwanted and it may lead to activation problems(not sure just feelings), I did that to prevent troubles before adventuring in the reinstallation from scratch.

I made sure to use the same computer name while installing win8 and windows 10 upgrade, i used the same name also while performing a clean install.

 

Thank you for the answer, I am doing another reinstall now. same like what you have done, I am doing a fresh install of win7 and have it acrtivate and then install the win 10.

what the heck is M$ doing??? full of crap for this activate thing....

 

Good Luck, I know reinstalling everything is a pain thats why I payed attention at some details that could be unrelevant.

The device was enlisted on the account just after I logged in with the Microsoft Account, it looks like its cached while the activation is performed and it shows the computer name you have currently on, I tried to change the computer name but the account will not take the changes.

while performing a clean Install, I had also used to set a local account while installing, and switching to the Microsoft account only at the very end(on desktop ready).(I had the connection to internet not set also while performing a clean install installing).

I made a 2nd clean install without removing anything on the account, and it worked as espected, only 1 device enlisted.

 

just upgraded from win7 which has nothing. small driver issue is gone, and I am going to make acronis image of this brand new windows 10. after 1 year, don't think that ms will allow any upgrade anymore, on one is able to activate the fresh install.

shame on you M$$$, so many engineers worked so hard to make this win10, but people are totally pi$$ed for this no fresh install crap...

 

Hi there,i to have got this same error code 0xC004C003,been 5 days so far and i'm beginning to think that it is not going to be done automatically.So being a total noob,as others have asked,how do you try to activate it the "regular" way.As in the activation area i have the same as the others,"Change product Key and go to Store button"Any help will be appreciated,thanks.