Unable to reactivate after upgrade

[Anesthaesia]

Hi All,

I recently had to replace a motherboard on a Windows 2003 server. Included in this change was the network adapter.

The hardware has installed fine, and Windows loads, but needs to reactivate due to hardware changes. The problem is after selecting this option, the system doesn;t do anything (shows backround only, no icons, start menu etc.)

I can only think that it's unable to activate due to the NIC not being configured and no Internet access available.

How can I reactivate this? In safe mode, I cannot configure network settings, and in Safe Mode with Networking, I cannot proceed until I reactivate.

Any suggestions?

Cheers,
D

 

[Anesthaesia]

Update...

When I boot normally, I get an error message:

"A problem is preventing Windows from accurately checking the status of the license for this computer.
To proceed, your copy of Windows must be activated with Microsoft. Do you want to activate Windows now?"

Clicking "No" returns to the login screen, clicking yes goes to the blank screen with backround.

 

[schtek]

try this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/techinfo/overview/activation.mspx

"Ask not what your computer network can do for you - ask what you can do to the computer network to give you a quiet moment ."

 

[Anesthaesia]

Thanks schtek,

I eventually managed to resolve it - for some reason the activation screen was not loading, that's why I was only getting the blank desktop. After a few more reboots, it eventually appeared (really strange as nothing had changed since previous reboots)

Anyway, I was unable to register automatically online since the NIC wasn't configured, so I had to do it over the phone which worked fine.

Back up and running now.

Cheers,
D