Vista Activation DNS Error
(1 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
Loading ...I finally made my switch last weekend to Vista Business, which we have copies of from work through our Volume license agreement. I got everything up and running and all is well, for the most part. Vista has some annoying things about it that I may write about later. All was indeed well until I went to activate Vista. I ended up getting this error:
Windows Activation Error
A problem occurred …blah, blah,blah… Error Code 0×8007232B
For possible resolution, click
More Information
What a perfectly cryptic error message. I love these. Thinking that I would get something meaningful, I click More Information. I get:
Code:
0×8007232B
Description:
DNS name does not exist
Not too helpful either. So I start to think before I Google, which is not my normal course of action. Did I enter in the wrong key? Not likely. I didn’t think it would let me continue with the install with a bad key. To make sure, I clicked the Change Product Key link on the System Properties Window in the Windows Activation Section. I pasted in the same key that I thought I typed in during install and clicked next and after about 20 seconds, BOOM! Activated.
I don’t know if this is a Vista License Key issue, a Volume License Key issue, or an issue with the person sitting at the keyboard. But in the event it was one of the first two, I thought it would make sense to post that it is easily resolved by re-entering the key.
Happy Vista Everyone!
12 Comments
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February 19th, 2007 at 8:54 am
Well, I’ll be blowed! What a strange fix, but it works!
I was using an Upgrade Business Edition and don’t actually recall entering a product key at any stage of the upgrade. Followed instructions above and problem solved.
Before fix, Windows Update would not work either. Now that the license key has been entered Windows Update works without proxy errors.
February 21st, 2007 at 4:50 am
Ditto to the above. didn’t work… tried this and it activated for me fine! As Bill Gates once said during a product launch - WOW!
February 24th, 2007 at 3:54 pm
Same here — Used a volume license copy, it didn’t make me enter a key on install, but I couldn’t activate. Pulled the key from the registry and re-entered it, still didn’t get it to activate. Went and entered our actual volume key, and it activated in a snap.
My question is - what IS that key that it installs by default, and why doesn’t it tell you it’s a bad key and that you need to change it. Or - is my “MS Licensing” copy just not properly registered with MS, or is it just broken?
February 28th, 2007 at 10:40 am
I used the upgrade option and entered in the key when prompted. Everything was fine and it said it activated. Then about a week later I started getting this error. I re-entered the very same key and it activated! I think this might be yet another undcumented Vista “feature”.
March 24th, 2007 at 9:05 am
Hi, thanks for the tip. I had the same problem, but now it is activated.
March 26th, 2007 at 8:18 am
Thanks for the tip, it worked great! I actually really don’t remember putting in the product key in the first place…I would think that Vista would have asked for that first but it was strange I was never asked…maybe that’s the issue, the Vista install is bad? Do you have the 4CD version of the install disks or the DVD? I have the 4CD version and maybe that one has a glitch since it has to wait for all 4 CDs to be inserted before install can begin…
April 18th, 2007 at 10:42 am
Thanks for the help in resolving such a puzzling error.
April 23rd, 2007 at 9:22 am
Here’s the why and how to solve the the error:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929826/en-us
You either enter a “personalized” key or install a KMS server to manage the activation keys.
May 17th, 2007 at 6:27 pm
Yep, worked great for me too!
May 18th, 2007 at 10:38 am
Thanks! That worked for me.
Volume license, didn’t ask for key on install.
June 8th, 2007 at 5:05 am
Note, re-entering your license key also works if you get error
Activation Error: Code 0×8007232A
DNS Server Error.
Worked for me on Vista Enterprise.
Adding this note as Google has no references to the ‘A’ Error code above.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:15 pm
Thanks for this solution. As soon as the key was entered, Windows authenticated by itself and was happy as a clam.