Need some help with Activation

I know some users experienced an issue with activating their 777.  I am also getting the message "unable to connect to activation server".  I've tried just about everything, forwarding the port 8888, taking my tower to a friends house and using his internet, even uninstalling my antivirus, turning off windows firewall.  Anyone have any suggestions about how I could get around this.  I've already sent a ticket to PMDG and received a response telling to try the above.  I've since sent them back a reply stating I have tried all that with no luck.  I am not totally sure I am forwarding or opening port 8888 properly.  Any help would be greatly appreciated.