After the release of Windows 8,then 8.1, more users are switching to the new OS. One of the early reported problems is the issues related to activation error 0xC004F074. After installing, you are supposed to activate windows. But some users have reported an error code 0xC004F074 during the time of activation.
This error code appears only during the time of activation when the Software Licensing Service reports that it cannot activate the product key since the Key Management Service cannot be contacted.