I have every Microsoft Flight Simulator since the very first one they released.  It has continued to be an incredible product!

This round, I had some issues installing and activating the new Microsoft Flight Simulator X so I thought I would share.   

Here were some of the errors I was getting

A technical problem occurred while it access the online activation server. We apologize for any inconvenience. The problem may be caused by a temporary network interruption or the server may be busy at this time.

Try again to activate over the Internet

Activate by telephone now

Activate later

SOLUTION – Here is what I did:

KB article link from Microsoft: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927007/en-us?spid=11941

I followed the registry change as well as the selective startup. After doing the selective startup and restarting, I was able to activate the software via the net. Remeber to go back to selective startup and set it back to normal when your software is activated.

I did call Microsoft tech support initially. Their support staff was nice but unable to help. They forwarded me to the Microsoft Activation group who then forwarded me back to the Microsoft tech support group. I was the tennis ball of tech support.

In any case, I ran out of time to deal with this for a week, and sure enough, there was a solution posted by the time I got back to working with the software.  Now to do some virtual flying!

By the way here are some other links to use when troubleshooting Microsoft Flight Simulator X:

http://support.microsoft.com/ph/11941

http://blogs.msdn.com/tdragger/