Error Code 0xC004C4AE - What is it?
Activation errors in Windows 10 can interfere with your ability to fully use the system. When Error Code 0xC004C4AE appears on your computer, you may see a message that shows that the validation process has been stalled due to binaries that appear to have been tampered with.
While the text of this message may sound intimidating to people who are not familiar with the inner workings of the Windows 10 system, the basic meaning of the error message is that something has been introduced to the system that is not natively supported in Windows 10. During the Activation process, Windows checks to ensure that all of the Windows elements that are currently on the computer are valid and authentic to the Windows system. Usually, this particular error code refers to a language package that has been downloaded into the system using an outside application, which the Windows 10 operating system does not support.
Common symptoms include:
- An error message when the activation is attempted
- Inability to complete the Windows 10 Activation process
- Inability to fully use apps in Windows 10 until the issue is resolved
This particular error can easily be resolved with a few simple steps. However, if you are not confident in your ability to use the methods below or they do not fully remove the issue on your computer, you may want to seek the assistance of a qualified repair technician who is well versed in the Windows 10 Activation process.
Solution
Error Causes
The most basic cause of Error Code 0xC004C4AE is that an unsupported language package has been enabled in the computer. This most often occurs when third-party applications have been used to introduce additional display languages to your system. While third-party applications that provide language packs are acceptable in some versions of the Windows operating system, the Windows 10 Activation process will not be able to complete if the system detects that one of these unofficial language packs exists on your machine.
Further Information and Manual Repair
There are several methods that may be helpful in resolving the basic issue in the display languages that causes Error Code 0xC004C4AE to appear:
Method 1: Restore Your System to an Earlier Point to Revert Changes
Use a backup copy to restore your computer to an earlier date, in effect undoing the changes that caused the error. When your system has been restored, you will be able to go through any language packs that are not native to the Windows operating system and remove them before re-attempting the installation and activation of the Windows 10 system.
This method is most useful if you keep a regular backup of your system and files. If you do not regularly back up the information on your computer, attempt one of the other methods instead. If you are unsure of how to use a backup to revert your changes or are not comfortable completing this step on your own, contact a certified Windows technician to assist you in the process.
Method 2: Revert to an Earlier System to Remove the Language Pack
If you are unable to restore your system using a backup, the other option to resolve Error Code 0xC004C4AE is to halt your installation of Windows 10 and go back to Windows 7 or Windows 8.1, from which you will be able to remove the language pack in question. Once the offending language pack has been completely removed from your computer, the Windows 10 Activation process should be able to proceed normally.
Several versions of windows don’t support language packages, so the best way to prevent this error from occurring is to avoid using any kind of third-party tool to install additional languages onto your Windows system. Activities Language You may be able to use third-party tools to instead complete alternative language actions without installing these languages as language packs.
If the above solutions do not help you to resolve Error Code 0xC004C4AE on your machine, get in touch with a qualified Windows repair technician, who may be able to perform the operations needed to remove the problematic language pack from your computer and allow the Windows 10 Activation process to continue to completion.


The true cause is that there is no working Border Gateway Protocol (BGP) routes into Facebook's sites. BGP is the standardized exterior gateway protocol used to exchange routing and reachability information between the internet top-level autonomous systems (AS). Most people, indeed most network administrators, never need to deal with BGP.
Cloudflare VP Dane Knecht was the first to report the underlying BGP problem. This meant, as Kevin Beaumont, former Microsoft's Head of Security Operations Centre, tweeted,
"By not having BGP announcements for your DNS name servers, DNS falls apart = nobody can find you on the internet. Same with WhatsApp btw. Facebook has basically de-platformed themselves from their own platform."
Many people are very annoyed by this and with the fact that they cannot use their social media platforms but it seems that Facebook employees are in even bigger annoyance as it was reported that Facebook employees can't enter their buildings because their "smart" badges and doors were also disabled by this network failure. If true, Facebook's people literally can't enter the building to fix things.
Reddit user u/ramenporn, who claimed to be a Facebook employee working on bringing the social network back from the dead, reported, before he deleted his account and his messages:
"DNS for FB services has been affected and this is likely a symptom of the actual issue, and that's that BGP peering with Facebook peering routers has gone down, very likely due to a configuration change that went into effect shortly before the outages happened (started roughly 1540 UTC). There are people now trying to gain access to the peering routers to implement fixes, but the people with physical access is separate from the people with knowledge of how to actually authenticate to the systems and people who know what to actually do, so there is now a logistical challenge with getting all that knowledge unified. Part of this is also due to lower staffing in data centers due to pandemic measures."
Ramenporn also stated that it wasn't an attack, but a mistaken configuration change made via a web interface.
Both BGP and DNS are down, the "connection to the outside world is down, remote access to those tools don't exist anymore, so the emergency procedure is to gain physical access to the peering routers and do all the configuration locally."
Technicians on site don't know how to do that and senior network administrators aren't on site.
It seems that it will all be down for a couple of more hours before the issue is resolved.
BigTech platforms Google and Facebook were hit with a series of antitrust lawsuits by the US federal government and states on charges they are operating monopolies and abusing their power.
Below is the status of the cases, as well as government probes of Apple and Amazon in their current states
