Dell factory reinstall will not activate

[Guest]

This is a Dell with an image on a partition on the hard drive. It activates when I "put it back to factory specs" from the image.
When I do the automatic updates then 'unactivates'. I have called Microsoft and they were no help. Dell wants to charge for support.
This is an original hard drive, original OEM, original Dell desktop.

Any suggestions as to how to get this activated?

 

[hang-the-9]

You can try to re-activate it online after the updates, go to the computer properties, you should see a "change product key", select that, type in the key that came with the computer, and run the activation again. If that does not help, try MS again, Dell can't activate it for you.

 

[Jerry J]

You can try to re-activate it online after the updates, go to the computer properties, you should see a "change product key", select that, type in the key that came with the computer, and run the activation again. If that does not help, try MS again, Dell can't activate it for you.

I had tried that with Micro$oft rep. It didn't work. I contacted Dell (no easy matter, since it is out of warranty and phone system is automated) They sent a new disk. All is well. Thank you.