Windows Server 2012 Essentials cannot activate

Question

I have been running Server 2012 Essentials for a couple years now and recently it is telling me that Windows is not activated. I tried to manually activate and get the following error:

Error Code: 0x80070422

Error Description: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it ahs no enabled devices assocated with it.

In looking around I found the Software Protection service was disabled and also greyed out. I found the service was set to disabled in the registry ([HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\sppsvc] "Start"=dword:00000004. I changed this key to 2 but still cannot get the service to start.

Error 1058: The service cannot be started, either because it is disabled or because it has not enabled devices associated with it.

Answer 1

Hi,

Kindly post your question in the TechNet Server Forums, as your question is beyond the scope of these Forums.

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windowsserver/en-US/home?category=windowsserver

Cheers.