If you’re having trouble activating Capture One on Windows, it could be due to a corrupted or unresponsive WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) service. WMI is required for activation because it enables Capture One to gather system data such as your hard drive’s serial number. If WMI fails, activation will not succeed.
Accessing the WMI Logs
- Open the Control Panel
- Go to System and Security → Administrative Tools
- Launch Event Viewer
- In Event Viewer, go to Windows Logs → System
- Right-click System and select Clear Log
Clear the Logs
When prompted to save the log:
- Choose No, unless you want to save it to a specific location.
After clearing:
- Relaunch Capture One and try activating again.
- Return to Event Viewer and check for any errors related to DCOM.
- If you see one, WMI is still unresponsive and a Windows reinstall may be necessary.
Suggestions for the OS reinstall
It would be impossible to cover all the aspects of how to solve this malfunction of the operating system. Anyway, the key points are provided below.
- Go to Administrative Tools and open Services
- Find Windows Management Instrumentation, right-click, and choose Properties
In the General tab:
- Ensure the Service status is Running
- If not, click Start
Also make sure:
- Startup type is set to Automatic
- In the Recovery tab, all recovery options are set to Restart the Service
If WMI service files are damaged
If restarting the service doesn’t help, the WMI files may be corrupted. To repair:
- Stop the WMI service (as described above)
- Navigate to C:\WINDOWS\System32\wbem\Repository
- Delete all contents of the folder
- Restart your computer — this will regenerate the necessary WMI files
Still not working?
If the issue persists:
- Reinstall Windows using official Microsoft installation media
- Try activating Capture One before installing any antivirus or firewall software