Env: Sony Vaio All-in-One /Win 8.1 / NIS Online (from ISP provider) updated to v 22.5.2.15 through LiveUpdate.
NIS reported the app had to be activated, but it was impossible to connect to the Norton server. Official Norton message:
“NORTON PRODUCTS THROUGH AN INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDER
Question: My Norton product is from my Internet Service Provider (ISP). How do I get a Windows 10 compatible version?
Answer: Different ISP partners are updated in different ways”; Comcast and CenturyLink are mentioned, but not my national ISP (Telenor).
The day before Microsoft reported the Win could be upgraded to Win10. Since NIS was updated to 22.5.2.15, I assumed I safely could upgrade Windows. But alas, the upgrade process failed 2-3 times. I performed a disk cleanup (including setup logs etc). At last the Win upgrade completed successfully (after 5 hours in total!). The great news: NIS Online did not ask for activation anymore; everything seems to work as expected.
My advice: If you have the latest NIS (v22) installed, ignore the message 'Activate'. Upgrade your Windows; and the issue hopefully disappears.