I dug out my old copy of Vista Ultimate to install in a vm under parallels.
After having the virtual disk become corrupted and attempting to reinstall Vista I got the "this license is already registered" Message. Probably because each time a Parallels VM disk image is created, it gets a unique id which windows activation plays off.

After being passed from tech support to customer service to I forget who and finally back to Tech Support, I get told that I am eligible to be helped out, but that I would have to be transferred one more time, and there would be a 5-8 min wait. 35 mins later (9pm - closing time) I hung up.

All that was because of the activation didn't work?

That sucks! When I have had to call the activation phone number it was just an automated thing and only took a minute.

Pretty much. Note that MS is starting to abandon maintenance on vista support web pages. The ones pointed to by vista itself are gone now, or lead to Win7 pages.

Again MS no longer wants to be helpful with Vista. The options in the automated system were all targeted at helping me move to Win7.

PS, I have moved to Win7 for my PC's. the vista install is my reuse of the old license in a parallels vm. Heck the license wasn't being used anymore.

It must have gotten more difficult. I've had activation fail, gone on to a live person, swore an oath that this was the only machine this copy would run on, and was then given a new key. This has never taken me more than ~10 minutes.

Round two tonight. Result they will call me back tomorrow with a new product key.

I'd guess that it hasn't taken me more than 5 minutes to get it reactivated. Of course, that wasn't with an OS they were trying to get rid of.

Yeah... I look forward to the joys of going through this garbage as I attempt to set up a number of legacy systems for testing purposes. :-p

Finally, yesterday, I got a call back and was provided with a new key.