Acrobat x deactivated on old machine but still cannot activate on new machine

Greetings.

After MUCH searching I fired up the OLD laptop, deactivated & removed serial number from that machine, and STILL cannot activate on my new laptop.

If I run on the OLD laptop it goes straight to the Activation window- which I do not execute.

How do I get past this? Its TERRIBLE that this is so common and there is little or no support for it