Windows currently not available for phone activation
According to the answering machine message, the service is "currently" unavailable, and users are referred to Microsoft's support website.
New trouble with forced activation: Windows currently cannot be activated by phone. Anyone who tries will hear an answering machine message. It announces that the call "currently" cannot be processed and refers to support.microsoft.com, Microsoft's general support homepage.
It is unclear whether the phone activation is only temporarily disrupted or if Microsoft has permanently pulled the plug. Instructions for accessing phone activation are still available online. The necessary dialogs are also still present within Windows.
Activation, what's that all about?
But what is activation all about? It's a form of copy protection. The assumption that you have bought Windows (i.e., the software) is as understandable as it is unfortunately incorrect. What you have acquired is merely a license, a right to use. This is the case with Windows, as with any other software: the rights holder must permit you to use it. Within the bounds of the law, they are free to decide what it will cost you and what you can do with the software. The range extends from "do whatever you want with it" (Public Domain) to "use but don't modify" (Freeware) to commercial licenses with extensive fine print. The latter include the permanently valid Windows licenses, which Microsoft only releases after you have contributed to the company's billions in profits.
Activation is intended to ensure that you don't cheat your way out of paying. The installation contacts Microsoft's servers, and only when they give their okay does Windows permanently unlock the full range of functions. Sometimes Windows requires re-activation, for example after replacing the motherboard or moving to a new PC. And sometimes, for unfathomable reasons, just because.
An important component of the activation process is the installation key. This is a string of characters consisting of five blocks of five characters each, separated by hyphens, looking something like this: 1ABCD-E2FGH-IJ3KL-MNO4P-QRST5. Without a key, Windows cannot be installed, let alone activated. Every Windows installation contains such a key, even if you haven't entered one yourself. During activation, it is checked whether the key matches the version and edition of the installation, is activatable (there are also "generic" ones for which this is not the case), and has not been used illegally multiple times.
Online...
Activating via the internet is the standard procedure nowadays: enter the key, click on Activate, then Windows contacts Microsoft's activation servers and handles the rest.
Online activation has usually taken place even if you didn't have to deal with the activation yourself. This is the case with PCs from major PC manufacturers that come with a pre-installed Windows version ex works. On such computers, a key matching the pre-installation is already embedded in the hardware, specifically in the firmware of the motherboard and there in the ACPI table "MSDM". If Windows on such a PC detects that it is not activated, it looks for a matching key at this location. If it finds one, it uses it and activates itself automatically. An online connection is still required, because even with this form of activation, Windows contacts Microsoft's servers.
...or by phone
Phone activation is intended for cases where a PC is not connected to the internet, for example for security reasons, and must remain so. The fact that Microsoft is at best reluctantly offering this service is evident from how hidden the necessary dialog has become. In Windows 11, press the key combination Windows+i to open Settings and select "Activation" under "System". Windows will detect that no internet connection is available. Select "Change product key", enter a valid installation key, and click "Activate now". As expected, this ends with an error message that you can dismiss. Only now is the option "Activate by phone" visible in Settings under System/Activation.
Select your country from the list, but be careful: the seemingly chaotic list is roughly sorted by English country names. For example, you will find Germany under G for Germany, Austria under A for Austria, and Switzerland was completely missing from the list on our test machine.
After selecting the country, the phone number will be displayed (for Germany: 0800/284 82 83). If you call it, a robot should now automatically guide you through the activation (in case of incorrect entries, you could even speak to an agent until now). But instead, you now get an answering machine message that, while varying depending on the chosen phone number, always just refers to the internet. (axv)
