Like many of the type A folks I work with, I rarely make mistakes.  But I made an interesting one this week and by golly it wasn’t my fault.  Or was it?

Anyone who is a frequent writer knows it’s beneficial to have someone spot check your work to pick up on spelling, grammar and other mistakes you simply overlook.  The brain is pretty weird and wonderful.  It tries to anticipate what you are doing and in real time it fills in the dots for you.

This is all well and good until something that needs to be precise is overridden.  That happened to me Saturday and I could not override the override until today.  And the only reason I could flip the switch was because someone else figured out the problem for me.

What the hell am I talking about? 

It’s really simple.  We all have to put those little keys in for activating products.  In the case of many of the Microsoft products it’s a 5x5 key.  5 nodes with 5 digits.  This is especially true for the Dell XPS 420 I have that has premium high definition recording capabilities.  Machines that have the “OCUR” feature have two keys.  One for Windows and one for activating the digital cable tuners.

On Saturday I did an in-place upgrade from Vista Ultimate x64 SP2 to Windows 7 Ultimate x64 RTM.  The initial upgrade went fine except I was prompted to re-activate the cable tuners.  The key you use comes from two places, or in my case, three possible places.  The normal key is an OEM key and is embedded when you get the machine.

Since I originally received the machine with 32bit Vista, I lost the original OEM DCT key when I flattened the machine.  But the Certificate of Authenticity on the back of the machine has the Windows key AND the DCT activation key.  So I grabbed my flashlight, a Post-It pad and pen.  I wrote down the key.  I plugged in the key on the Windows input field and the key was rejected.

What?

So I double checked the key again to verify it was correctly written.  I tried it again and activation failed.  At this point I’m rewinding to 18 months back when I first got the machine and the SATA controller issues that forced a couple of unplanned installs and tests for Dell.  I burned a couple of activations of the OCUR DCT key back then so I’m assuming this has come back to haunt me.  My workaround is to lookup another key I had issued then and use it.  That worked.  Crisis averted.

However, I did follow-up with the Windows program managers and ask them to look at my key.  I wanted to know if it was out of activations.  I made the assumption at this point it was.  Bad assumption.

The Problem is Between the Keyboard and the Seat

The program manager that contacted me wanted the key, so I typed it in and shot it off to him in email.  Now keep in mind I am still using the post-it note as my reference point.  I had checked this key probably five times at this point, digit by digit or more accurately, node by node.

The PM writes back after a couple of days that the key isn’t checking out.  So I snapped about ten hand held pictures with my digital camera.  They are too blurry.  Now keep in mind I am still comparing my hand written note to the digital pictures.  So I yank the machine from under my desk and place it on top of a trash can.  I then put my camera on the tripod and rip off another five pictures.  This time they are clear as glass.  I’ll show that freaking PM who’s got a valid key!!!

I crop the pic and send it off.  I receive a reply in a few minutes and he points out the email I sent with the key I typed is a different key than the one in the image.  WTF?  I just checked the damn thing.  But sure enough, the very last digit is supposed to be a 7 and I’ve been typing a T.

This is freaking weird.  I typed the key wrong 3-4 times.  At least three in attempts on the Windows input prompt and one on the email I sent.  The email clearly shows the error.  But every time I visually compared the onscreen key against the hand written note, the 7 and the T looked the same. My brain said it was OK.  In fact, I didn’t even notice it on the digital pic after looking at close to twenty different pictures of the COA.  It took a completely different person to point out the error.  Wow.  That’s a really ugly mental optical illusion.  The difference between a 7 and a T is pretty small visually but come on brain.  Get with it.

Moral of the story: Don’t believe everything you read.