After coming back to the boards to see if my original post had been answered, I am pleased , yet surprised to see such helpfull comments from both a moderator and an administrator, having had less than satisfactory help from other games. Thanks for the replies,it is appreciated.  I would still like to install and run the game, but would like to find out why my account won't activate first. In reply to the posts from Karyuu and Acraig, please consider the following:

In reply to Karyuu. It wasn't a matter of 'giving up' or a lack of patience. It was merely that the errors were not giving reasons for the failed activation. If I was given an error, for instance, "Activation failed due to missing activation code", I could deal with it and probably find out why my browser was not sending the code. A large, full size browser window, completely blank with the words, "Your account has NOT been activated", tells me absolutely nothing. Second, and please accept this as a benevolent statement, I have played EQ2 since launch, and recently Vanguard since launch. If ever you needed patience and an ability to stick with them through their drastic opening months, I have it in abundance. I don't 'give up', I try to analyse the problem and correct it, but as I stated above, lack of error codes or information from the failed activation does not help. Finally for Karyuu, I tried with my Hotmail address in the first try, then after several failed attempts, used my orangehome.co.uk address,with the same problem, and finally used my wanadoo.co.uk address, again getting the same error and problem. It's not the domain I think, having used 3 different ones in my attempts.

For Acraig. I am pleased that you would consider activating the account manually due to problems, but how was I to contact you or your representative in that case ? It was after several attempts at linking the activation code that I thought of registering for the fourms and expressing my problems in this original post. If I hadn't thought of doing that, I wouldn't have any way of informing you that a problem existed. However, I'm glad that you have read and commented on the problem. Rather than asking you to maually activate the account so that I can start to enjoy the game environment, and hopefully become a helpful member of the community, I would like to get to the bottom of why my account activation fails using 3 different domains and e-mail addresses. I can't be certain, but if seven people are having problems, isn't it reasonable to assume that many many more may be experiencing the same problems and you are just not aware of them. Human nature is full of apathy, so it's likely many people just 'can't be bothered' and are not continuing with the registration process due to the same problem I have, which you will not hear about.

If you agree, I would like to post the full URL from my activation e=mail, substituting my e-mail address for xxxxxx@xxxxx.co.uk to maintain anonymity within the forum. Maybe in typing it mauanlly, i'm doing something wrong, or possibly the activation link is faulty. Either way, by publishing the link, you may see something I'm msising. It is quite a long link after all. Anyway, I'll be back on this forum in a few hours and hope that you can inform me of your decision.

Regards and thanks