Change Windows Product Key Error ‘Unacceptable Character’

KB ID 0000812 

Problem

A very strange problem today? I was attempting to change the product key of a Windows 2008 R2 Server, I copied and pasted the code in, and this happened;

I assumed I’d done something stupid, or there was some formatting in the text I had copied (from One Note). So I typed it in manually, every time I tried to enter the letter ‘n’ this happened? And when I copy pasted the code in it had removed all the N’s and did it again.

Solution

1. Thankfully I’ve done a lot of deployments, so I know how to change the product key and then activate the machine form command line. Run the following command to change the key;

[box]
slmgr.vbs -ipk 12345-ABCDE-12345-ABCDE-12345 [/box]

2. You can then activate the machine with the following command;

[box] slmgr.vbs -ato[/box]

Related Articles, References, Credits, or External Links

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