"Communication Error" during Activation...

[Elizabeth]

Yes I have a perfectly working internet connection, No I do not use a
proxy, Yes I have tried disabling my firewall, Yes I have deleted and
reinstalled the trial, and No I cannot activate by telephone because
this is the trial version of OneNote.

When I try to activate my downloaded (from the Microsoft website) free
trial of OneNote 2007, it starts "connecting" and then tells me that
there was a "communication error."

I was having this same problem a few months ago when I downloaded the
MS Office Pro 2007 trial. Eventually it just worked one day.
Yesterday, I bought the real version of Microsoft Office Pro, and
activation went just fine, no communication errors.

Microsoft's solutions, on its webpage because apparently there is no
telephone support for the trial versions, is to check my firewall
settings (done) or to activate by telephone (not possible.)

Anyone?

Thanks,
Elizabeth

P.S. I'm running Windows XP, I use Firefox 2.0 but also have IE
available, and I have a cable connection through Time Warner.

 

[Grant Robertson]

Yes I have a perfectly working internet connection, No I do not use a
proxy, Yes I have tried disabling my firewall, Yes I have deleted and
reinstalled the trial, and No I cannot activate by telephone because
this is the trial version of OneNote.

When I try to activate my downloaded (from the Microsoft website) free
trial of OneNote 2007, it starts "connecting" and then tells me that
there was a "communication error."

You might be having the same problem I had when activating my new
installation of Windows XP Media Center Edition (MCE). Here is the post I
sent to microsoft.public.windowsupdate about that.

=================================================================
Subject: Windows Update error 0x80072EFD, possible solution.
From: Grant Robertson <[email protected]>
Newsgroups: microsoft.public.windowsupdate

First the solution:

1) Go to Internet Options (either through the control panel or { Tools /
Options } in Internet Explorer. Go to the Connections tab and click the
Lan Settings button at the bottom. Uncheck "Automatically detect
settings."

2) Go to Start / Run... and type "proxycfg -d" and press Enter.


Why this works:
If your computer is connected to a large network such as at a university
or large corporation then there may be one or more proxy servers on that
network that are not meant for you to use. If "Automatically detect
settings" is checked then Windows will find that proxy server even if you
are not meant to use it. This can cause several problems. If that proxy
server is configured to block certain sites or is not configured properly
for certain activities such as Windows Update, then those sites or
services will not work for you. It is even possible to not be able to
connect to any of Microsoft's web site with Internet Explorer but still
be able to do so using Firefox. Unfortunately, Microsoft always assumes
that everyone is on an all-Microsoft network and that any proxy servers
that exist are there for you to use. This is why most of the Microsoft
documentation about this error tells you to make sure the "Automatically
detect settings" option is enabled if you don't know if there even is a
proxy server.

(see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/241783)

A second mistake on Microsoft's part is to take whatever proxy server
Windows finds and store it in the Registry where you can't see it. If you
uncheck the "Automatically detect settings" option then Internet
Explorer will not look for or attempt to use a proxy server. However,
Windows update will still continue to use the proxy server stored in the
Registry. The only way to remove this setting is to edit the registry
directly or to use the proxycfg.exe command line tool.


I spent hours last night looking for the solution to this problem. I had
just installed a new PC with Windows XP Media Center Edition and had
gotten all of many Office programs installed before I went to run the
updates. I thought I had messed up the install somehow so I started the
installation from scratch several times before I finally hit on this
solution. Oddly, it was not mentioned once in all the web pages I found.
Most only repeated Microsoft recommendations using other words. I'm
telling you, for a bunch of geniuses, Microsoft sure can do some idiotic
things sometimes.
==================================================================

P.S. Even though you are on a commercial ISP rather than a university
network like me, that doesn't mean that Time/Warner doesn't have some
proxy server somewhere on their network. In fact, a lot of ISPs cache web
sites in an attempt to speed up your access to them. This is done by a
proxy server even though they don't tell you about it. Or perhaps there
was one at some time but there isn't now.

It is entirely possible that the activation code for the trial you are
trying to activate is looking in the registry for proxy information and
not telling you about it.

 

[Manish]

Dear All,

This problem is still there, i tried a lot behind the proxy walls but not
working, if you will do it from direct connection it will work but not from
proxy....may be we need to wait for them to give some patch for this.

Regards
Manish

 

[Duncs]

Dear all,

I had exactly the same problem but with MS Visio trial. In the end I
discovered that it was simply that IE was set to work offline, and I hadn't
noticed as I was using firefox to surf.

Dunc

 

[undisclosed]

Try this

-Open "Internet Options", Click the Security ta
-Click "reset all zones to default level
-Click "trusted sites", then the "sites" button
-uncheck the box requiring server verification (https:
-enter the URL <*.microsoft.com> in the add website field, then click
the add button
-back your way out of Internet Options, open an Office program and tr
to activate again

This worked for me, and I hope it solves this frustrating problem fo
you too

 

[Carol King]

Try this:

-Open "Internet Options", Click the Security tab
-Click "reset all zones to default level"
-Click "trusted sites", then the "sites" button.
-uncheck the box requiring server verification (https
-enter the URL <*.microsoft.com> in the add website field, then click
the add button.
-back your way out of Internet Options, open an Office program and try
to activate again.

This worked for me, and I hope it solves this frustrating problem for
you too!

I managed to get it to work merely by lowering my Internet security
level to "Medium". After it activated I re-engaged the higher security
level for that zone.