Tried activating a fresh install of Windows using a digital key that came bundled with the machine—and it just wouldn’t validate. No error detail, no redirect, just a vague “try again later” loop. Instead of guessing or reinstalling everything, I looked into microsoft reviews to understand how others got around activation problems like this. Turns out it's not that rare, especially with OEM keys tied to hardware. Reading those user experiences helped me skip hours of troubleshooting and go straight to the method that finally worked.