He had a choice. He could spend the rest of the night on hold with Microsoft support, fighting a bureaucratic battle he would likely lose because the person on the other end wouldn't understand the obscure build error. Or, he could follow the instructions of Lazarus_Zero and modify the system files to bypass the check.
Several factors contributed to the "Product Activation Failed 2013" issue: product activation failed 2013
Contact support with error code 2013 and your product details. He had a choice
He dug deeper. The search results shifted from helpful tech forums to darker corners of the internet. He found himself reading a thread titled simply: He found himself reading a thread titled simply:
The post continued. “You can’t activate it online. You can’t activate it by phone. The system has flagged that build as a security risk due to a flaw in the DRM that allowed for potential memory leaks during validation. They killed it remotely. You have to use the 'Offline Loader' patch, but that’s legally grey.”