What to Do When Your Windows 8.1 Pro Pre-Installed OS Licence Expires for Your Laptop?

Recently I faced with a problem with my laptop. Every now and then when I booted my laptop (it's a couple of years old Toshiba Satellite Pro with Intel Core Duo processor inside) a blue labelled message began to appear which read like this:

"YOUR WINDOWS LICENCE IS SOON TO GET EXPIRED, 

PLEASE ACTIVATE IT !"

I am not a computer expert. I had purchased my laptop with pre-installed operating system. I never knew that the the operating system producer, Microsoft in this case, had placed a limited licensed product inside my laptop, without which my computer is quite useless. To my understanding, a laptop machine with pre-loaded software should mean software too to keep working together with the hardware to the end.

Anyway the message from the OS producer indicated that it is not the case. Some detailed study on the topic revealed the following to me:

The manufacturer of the pre-loaded laptop should have used a unique OS with a unique licence key and should have provided me those too. I remember the retailer giving me some CDs telling them as the backup OS and other software tools.

I never had an opportunity to use those in my past couple of years and now those delicate items are not traceable any more!

Even it those are available, the OS company now says that the license is over. I have to get new license, perhaps by paying some money to Microsoft. But how? I have to use my present computer to do that and what if the whole process fails in between? Whom I would contact for help in case I fail?

The present world of computers for everyone, including home users like me and the working professionals in the various business organizations is quite complex. It is the combined product of the intelligent works of millions of people over decades across the globe!

Every one knows some aspects of computers now, but none could be an expert of everything.

For solving the problems, one may have to look for solutions also from the data that exist in the linked computers of the internet!

And it is an art! If you know it, well and good. If you don't well, start the game from the beginning by say, getting a new computer!

Computer savvy youngster might find solutions for such problems much faster. But that may not be the situation for ordinary old users like me!

Yet I did some data mining and tried out fixing the problem myself. And it worked!

Now let me share that procedure with those of you who might land in to such a problem now or later!

Now the following is the procedure that you can try if you face with the problem mentioned above to fix it, just as I did it successfully:

If you use a smart phone, find this blog page with your smartphone browser and keep it opened for you to refer to the procedure steps. Else you may write down the procedure first lest you forget it once you start trying it on your laptop. Alternatively you may take a picture of the procedure using your smart phone and keep the picture opened for your ready reference.

PROCEDURE

1.START YOUR LAPTOP AND EXIT FROM ALL USUAL APPS THAT YOU USE

2. OPEN 'TASK MANAGER' BY PRESSING CONTROL+ALT+DELETE TOGETHER

3. IN THE TASK MANAGER WINDOW, FIND WINDOWS EXPLORER PROCESS

4. RIGHT CLICK WINDOWS EXPLORER AND FIND AND SELECT 'RESTART'

5. HERE YOU FIND THE PROCESS HAS RESTARTED

6. WAIT FOR A MINUTE AND THEN CLOSE THE TASK MANAGER WINDOW

7. THEN GO TO THE START MENU ICON AT THE BOTTOM LEFT

8. RIGHT CLICK THE START MENU ICON AND SELECT Command Prompt (Admin)

9. CLICK  Yes to get into DOS Window ( uac) prompt in black screen

10. Type the command: slmgr -rearm at the place the curser blinks and press ENTER

( Note that there is a space between slmgr and -rearm ; do not forget to place the minus sign (-) not underscore (_) before rearm)

11. NOW RESTART YOUR COMPUTER / LAPTOP AS USUAL

If your computer is with Windows 8.1 Pro OS using 32 bit configuration, your problem should get fixed by this method.

I am sharing this as I could fix the problem by this method.

But a word of caution. You cannot be fully sure whether it works because of the possibility of several complex factors inherent to computer systems. Try your luck yourself if you dare.

Good luck! 

Digital Administration in India: Pockets of Great Stupidity and Pockets of Wisdom!

In this blog article, I would be highlighting a contemporary aspect of developing India in the field of digital administration.

India's leap into the field of digital work space was rather late. Yet, India is presently one of the largest supplier of digital workers in the world. The majority of young Indian work force gain their incomes from computer related works in one way or the other. The numbers of Indian engineering graduates directly engaged in computer software coding and programming either within the country or abroad are also very large now. 

But when it comes to core computer hardware technology, Indian contribution is pretty low. India keeps importing computer and communication hardware from abroad. Manufacturing of computers in India essentially means assembling of hardware components obtained from developed nations! India is yet to make her footprint as a technology developer! Indian space is not-yet-so-good for original technological ideas to take root and grow!  

Indian political administration being with all the vices of democracy had not been very supportive of using advanced technologies such as computers for the general purpose of the masses from the very beginning. India's political leadership started realizing the potential benefits of computerization and digital economy only from the 1990's after the foreign dollar paying companies from the USA began recruiting technically qualified Indians in large numbers for filling up the massive shortage of lower level digital work force to offset the so-called Y2K problem.

Indian Political Leaders!

The large demand for engineering graduates from India to do digital works of the computer enabled fields  gave rise to the large scale mushrooming of engineering colleges from a few scores to over 10000 and the growth of digital work contracting companies  in a matter of just over a decade, in India.

Perhaps one of the main reasons for the advancement of digital economy related growth within India was the poor knowledge of Indian bureaucrats and political bosses about the digital economy business! Their lack of knowledge in the initial years prevented them from interfering with the natural growth of digital economy in the country. Indian politicians and bureaucrats were good in extracting money from conventional businesses in liquor trade, road transport, real estate, etc with their typical road blocking administrative techniques, but were yet to understand the business processes of the digital world! 

Gradually the wings of the government machinery began to learn about computers and computer aided communication technologies and their potentials in money making.

So they stepped in to grab their share of the digital economy cake directly and indirectly causing huge interference in the smooth growth of demand based digital economy in India. 

Then followed the era of various scams in India- the telecom 2G scam and the scams related with education and the like arising out of the imposition of draconian administrative controls and involvement in the smooth growth of legitimate businesses.

All these money scandals or scams kept happening in India due to the gradual success that unscrupulous democratic leaders got in diluting the efficacy of the bureaucracy. The former did it by promoting bureaucrats and technocrats who were good sycophants rather than good in character and competence, to key positions in the government! 

In all these, we also see pockets of human stupidity concurrently moving along with human genius!

And my intention is only a mild effort to create a little bit awareness among those who care for reading this blog, about the likelihood of human follies and stupidities that go hand in hand with human achievements, wisdom and genius.

And that happens because, we humans are not a homogeneous group of individuals with equitable physical and mind capacities- we are with varying degrees of perfection or imperfection. 

We are with varying levels of wisdom and stupidity!

And hence we reflect great achievements and great stupidities at the same time and that situation has not changed so far. Perhaps we need to progress to many generations ahead to reduce the ratio of foolishness to wisdom in our individual and group activity matrix.

When we look to our world as a whole, we see the uneven distribution of human stupidity and wisdom and its effect reflecting marked uneven distribution of  human development indices.

Though late, the Indian government was realizing the potential of digital economy. Apparently, lack of technological knowledge among the policy makers and the bureaucracy also caused them making great follies while they began planning big to make use of the great potential of computers!  

Prioritization of digitization or use of computers for all possible human activity for taking advantage of the great potential of computers is indeed a wise administrative decision.

But implementing it unwisely would make a wise decision appear as foolish or stupid!

When things move as a mixture of wisdom and stupidity, clever fellows (intelligent people with no character) get success in reaping selfish gains for them abundantly, though for short duration!

The acts of stupidities coupled with the acts of characterless people  enhance human sufferings and the nation as a whole gets affected adversely. 

India is a typical example of that at present!

For example let us consider a scenario like this. Suppose a group of wise and intelligent governmental advisers who know much about computers and digitization, keep advising  the governmental decision makers about the need for fast implementation of digitization in the country for reaping its benefits, there is always a possibility of some stupid decision or law making when the decision makers are not with the level of knowledge in this field as their advisers. When there are stupid fellows in the governmental decision making system, unscrupulous, characterless but clever fellows within the system get good chances for making good fortunes for them as well.

When that happens, the nation will get  faultily  implemented digital infrastructure and digital governance!

In India, digital governance acts done by the government in a stupid haste with regard to money transactions, income tax return filing, goods and services tax administration, electronic voting etc are typical examples of stupidity arising out of pretty high levels of ignorance in the area of computerized  administration coupled with corruption in certain pockets.

No doubt, computerized administration can do wonders and the decision to adopt that policy is not any stupidity. Stupidity here is the level of misunderstanding or inferior awareness about the human effort, competency and time that are required for its successful implementation.

Is it not stupidity when the government desires that all its citizens who earn taxable incomes to pay taxes, keep accounts , file income tax returns and monitor their taxation interactions with the tax authorities only in a computerized manner. But this desire becomes absurd stupidity when the government declares it as implemented ignoring the ground realities, causing great hardships to the citizens and also causing great damages to the governmental systems as well. How can you declare a nation fully digital when the same nation has not achieved full basic literacy even?

Is it wise to assume that an illiterate person would not have income tax payable income? Is it wise to assume that all income tax payers find computers too convenient for all their tax payments, return filing and record keeping? If not, is it wise to have a tax payment system fully computerized?

When the individuals in the top decision making levels are themselves computer illiterates, there is all possibility that they leave everything to the hired system analysts and programmers for making the digital systems and processes as required for the digital administration. Faulty systems get introduced which need frequent changes. Frequent changes in an administrative system cause the people to lose confidence in the government! It is not a good thing for the nation.

The current problems related to e-governance of income tax, Goods and Serives Tax (GST) all reflect faulty implementation of digital governance.

Similar faults could be seen in the implementation of bio-metric citizen identity system called Aadhaar, e-voting, etc as being implemented by the governmental departments and organizations.

While some banks have implemented extremely reliable and good e-banking systems, some others, especially in the government sector are limping with faulty systems.

Some Indian private companies have very good e-management systems while several others are still with faulty systems.

All systems are as a result of peoples' effort, after all. When the individual capacities of the people with regard to knowledge and wisdom are widely varying from person to person, extreme care is needed to build organizations of people for  tapping the potential of the individuals for collective good.

That is where good leadership matters!

Squadron Leader K M Daniel RAF

The picture above is a snap of the front page of yesterday's Sunday Supplement of  Malayala Manorama, the number one newspaper in India published both in print media as well as in digital online form. (Those who can read Malayalam language may click the image above to open the online page to read the content.)

I was surprised when I read the full page story with illustrative graphics and pictures because the hero depicted in the story is none other than my own great uncle who who left this world to his heavenly abode two decades ago.

As I started reading the story, my surprise and curiosity both began to rise. There were reasons for that.

I was reading some hitherto unknown things about a person whom we thought we knew well. I knew my late great uncle was a pilot of the Royal Air Force during the World War-2 and a commercial pilot with the erstwhile Tata Airlines which got nationalized as today's Air India later.

Besides, I was very close to Late Shri K M Daniel during the times when he was no more a serving pilot. He was younger brother of my grand mother late Mrs.K.M.Annamma . As a teenager, I was very fascinated with airplanes and the men who piloted those flying machines and obviously this uncle was my hero during those days. I remember spending several nights together listening to his adventure stories which he used to share with me.

But those were things of the past. Except we the old timers, hardly any one from the new generations had a chance to know about this pilot of the world war times. And the news paper now carried certain things which he never told me. Had I known those, he would have been a greater hero for me and perhaps I had known more interesting things of his life first hand!

For the benefit of my readers, let me briefly tell you his life history from the things I had known and also from what the newspaper now told:

K M Daniel was born and brought up in a village called Kumplampoika, few kilometers away from the present day Pathanamthitta city in Kerala. He was a couple of years younger to my grandmother who was born in 1902. They were a total of 11 siblings, sons and daughters of late Kulanjikombil Mathai, the founder head master of the present day CMS High School Kumplampoika.

My great uncle began his career as a teacher in the same school after his graduation. The family had plans to make him an ordained priest and hence he had attended some time in a seminary too.

But he was a sports enthusiast and aspired to serve the Royal Air Force and did not know the way by which he could do so. But he tried his luck by writing a plain letter to the Air Force Command that operated from Madras (present Chennai)

As luck turned in his favor, he was called for the selection process and selected. He got trained as a fighter pilot of the Royal Air Force. There were several times he saw death face to face, but escaped unscathed. 

One interesting episode is his solo flight of a single engine air craft with a cobra emerging in the cockpit, enough to make any one to loose his cool. But he took the plane to the base and landed safely and the incident made him to be known as 'Cobra Mathews' among his mates later.

There are several stories that he told me personally during the days of the war and later. I brevity, I am leaving those here.

After the world war, he retired from the RAF. He was in the rank of a Squadron Leader at that time, quite a senior position of those days. But he had never mentioned this to me. Perhaps, he thought this not so important.

Being a rare breed of experienced Indian pilot of those days, he was soon absorbed by the pioneering private airline company of India, the Tata Airlines which later became Air India.

He was the pioneering commercial pilot from India who got trained by Boeing company to fly Boeing jet planes. He had told me that it was he who took delivery of the first Boeing aircraft from USA and flew it to India way back in the 1960.

Being the pioneering international pilot from India in the Nineteen Fifties and early Sixties, he was the pilot of choice for Indian leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru. He had told me that it was he who flew the first non-stop Air India flight from Delhi to Moscow which took Smt. Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit there as the first Indian envoy to USSR way back in 1947.

But he had never told me about his closeness to great leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru or Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of British India. I remember him referring these names casually during our talks. But only after reading yesterday's newspaper story, I knew how close he was with these great men of  the last century. He was one among the three who was invited from India to attend the marriage of the daughter of Lord Mount Batten in England!

Later in his life, he became a Christian preacher with several people flocking to listen to his preaching and prayers. It was a life quite contrary to his flamboyant previous life as an elite air force officer or an international VIP pilot. During that period, he hardly ever talked about it. I remember him writing letters to me when I joined Bhilai Steel Plant as an engineer. He was more concerned with spiritual aspects during that period. I remember him talking very detailed spiritual things with me when I became an young professional just as he had talked about his adventurous and glamorous past life as a pilot some years ago during my teenage days.

And to be very frank, I could hardly fathom the depth of his talks then, though I was a patient listener to him. As I was a novice in spiritual matters, I could hardly ask him any questions either. I lost a great opportunity!

I am glad that he left this worldly abode as a contented man, not in fame or wealth, but as one who was drawn to God transcending all ways of the world and the material glory!

I have now started understanding the difference!

Just a wishful thought. Had he been living now, he would have been one person with whom I could have discussed about my book of life guidance!