I installed Office 2003 on my computer when I first bought it (circa
September 2005), and installed it and activated it without any problems.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason I got a request to re-activate it tonight -
and I had to use the telephone help line because Internet activation
wouldn't work.

I've updated the hardware slightly since the initial install (new graphics
card + extra RAM) in December, but haven't changed anything since then so
the hardware configuration has been fixed for at least 4 weeks. Any ideas
why its suddenly demanding activation again, and anything I can to prevent
this annoyance.

NB - Only possible change I can think of is that I disabled the
motherboard's Ethernet port (using Device Manager) yesterday. Its a crude
attempt to stop frequent Windows XP pauses - which actually seems to work. I
only use that port once a week or so (just use it to share my Internet
Connection with a laptop and allow that machine to download virus updates,
MS Security Patches etc) so I thought it no great loss to shut it down
between times.
If this is the reason, I'm now concerned that re-enabling it may also
confuse the Office Activation software - is there a way round this gotcha?

Bob,

Hi Bob,

Have you used any disk or registry 'cleanup' utilities? They can sometimes delete the .dat or .bak or other files used with the
activation records, as an example.

===========
<<"Bob Huntley" <bob.huntley@btinternet.com> wrote in message news:dr137g$932$1@nwrdmz02.dmz.ncs.ea.ibs-infra.bt.com...
I installed Office 2003 on my computer when I first bought it (circa
September 2005), and installed it and activated it without any problems.

Suddenly, for no apparent reason I got a request to re-activate it tonight -
and I had to use the telephone help line because Internet activation
wouldn't work.

I've updated the hardware slightly since the initial install (new graphics
card + extra RAM) in December, but haven't changed anything since then so
the hardware configuration has been fixed for at least 4 weeks. Any ideas
why its suddenly demanding activation again, and anything I can to prevent
this annoyance.

NB - Only possible change I can think of is that I disabled the
motherboard's Ethernet port (using Device Manager) yesterday. Its a crude
attempt to stop frequent Windows XP pauses - which actually seems to work. I
only use that port once a week or so (just use it to share my Internet
Connection with a laptop and allow that machine to download virus updates,
MS Security Patches etc) so I thought it no great loss to shut it down
between times.
If this is the reason, I'm now concerned that re-enabling it may also
confuse the Office Activation software - is there a way round this gotcha?

Bob>>
--
Bob Buckland ?:-)
MS Office System Products MVP

*Courtesy is not expensive and can pay big dividends*