I've just finished upgrading the motherboard in my PC (an ASRock K8 Combo-Z board, which is cool in that it has both a Socket 754 and 939). Predictably, in doing so I crossed the critical threshold which causes every bit of software I own to require "re-activation".

I wasn't too worried about this because I've actually bought all of the packages. And, in fact, I haven't had any problems except for the Media Center Extender for Xbox.

Each time I tried to reactive Media Center Extender, I received the highly informative "Error 45080", and instructions to call a toll-free number for re-activation.

OK, so I finally had a few minutes to do this. After reading off the 9 groups of numbers to a machine, I was told that there was a problem. I was transferred to a human who, after I again read off the 9 groups of numbers (several times, with a reboot in between), told me there was a problem and the code was invalid.

Right. So I know this is valid, because I've got the disk. The human on the phone gives up and transfers me to technical support. After a few minutes, I'm disconnected because "all lines are busy".

Rather than going through the 30 minute process again, I decide to try an uninstall and reinstall of Media Center Extender for Xbox on the theory that the code that it's showing, which I need to give to customer support, is somehow referencing the old hardware configuration.

Voila, this time the Internet based re-activation works fine and I'm done. No need even to phone back to customer support, which suits me just fine.