Hi, I'm an idiot, I know. Microsoft sent me Vista RC1 and I installed it in
my new HP laptop. What a fool - why did I do such a stupid thing? Well that's
not my question. My question relates to the above error code when I try to
log on to Vista. The installation went fine but I cannot sign on!

Message says, unexpected error 0xc004e002
The software licensing service reported that the licence store contains
inconsistent data.

I've got genuine XP and Vista but the damm thing obviously doesn't think so!
I'm in the UK, microsoft don't offer telephone support for Vista here and so
I don't know what to do. My new laptop doesn't come with an XP disc so do I
have to go out and buy a copy and try and re-load XP and loose everything?
I'm not a techie but I'd be grateful for some helpful advice (don't say ring
MS activation -no use)
Thanks
Bruce