Many thanks to Pit of 3DWin for this scoop which is translated from German. WHOOOOO! /me drinks some more coffee
3DWin blurb: I discovered a problem with the product activation. Some honest customers, who had bought Windows XP, wanted to activate their product after installing on the PC. But the activation procedure by internet failed. So they contacted Microsoft by phone for activation. To their surprise: the original copies are already activated several times sometimes up to 31x and more!.
The reason: many copies have the same serial.
The fact: different dealers are affected by it. Microsoft is informed, but has no idea, why the problem consists. Perhaps there consists an error in the production or something else... We (or perhaps Microsoft) will inform you, if there are more new news. Stay tuned!
ED Note: :cross: I activated mine and Registered like a good boy :cheeky: and I didn't get this problem, so it didn't affect me. If this is however the case. Product Activation is as good as dead ROFL!
News source: 3DWin