Win XP activation?

I have 3 back-up drives for one system and each drive contains an install of the OS. Over time, there have been problematic programs through botched updates, so I've wiped the drive and activated this one product key some 8 times I guess.

Am I going to wind up on some MS doggy-doo list for activating this copy of XP with frequency? The gal I just talked to said to just keep calling back but I wonder if at some point, they will deny me.

Thoughts?

is this the 30 day activation when you re-install windows xp.

or is it the genuine windows xp, boot up and shut down nag screens.

regards.

John.

John,

This is activating XP in multiples for the same system. I think their computers flag a product key if it has been activated more than 4 times. It will not allow me to activate the OS online so I have to call it in.

I would think the only way they would deny you is if that OS is an OEM and it looks like you are doing this on multiple computers. I have a supscription to the Microsoft Partners Action Pack and have activated XP close to two dozen times. Granted I have 10 licenses, but only have it installed on 5 different PCs. I swap components a lot and XP considers 3 components changes a different computer and requires another activation after that. I think out of the two dozen or so activations, I have activated 3 of the PCs 6 or 7 times a piece. I always call in case they want to ask me about it, but I always do the automated option and never had to speak to anyone. You should be cool.

Mike,
If you are reinstalling on the same machine each time, you don't need to reactivate. Just save the following two files in C:\Windows\System32: Wpa.dbl and Wpa.bak to a floppy before formatting.

After reinstallation, when Windows asks you to activate your product, decline and do not activate online.

Just overwrite the new files with your backed-up activation files (may need to do it in Safe Mode) and reboot. Windows will then be activated with no online monkey business or telephoning needed.

That said, if you'd only get everything running the way you like (programs + service packs installed and activated) before imaging the backups, you wouldn't need to reinstall at all. Just reimage the disk from the backup whenever everything gets hosed.

RA40 said:

Am I going to wind up on some MS doggy-doo list for activating this copy of XP with frequency? The gal I just talked to said to just keep calling back but I wonder if at some point, they will deny me.

Thoughts?

Click to expand...

Yeah XP has a limitation before you have to play "Mother May I use the disc I paid 100 bucks for?"
I reached my quota on the disc but didn't even bother to call in; it's collecting dust.
On my next machine (64 bit) I'm going with Linux and a Windows Vista disc is not allowed within 200 feet of it. You thought XP was bad on Big Brother issues...

The latest info I have seen on Vista is that it will allow only one transfer.

Just another in the long line of reasons to avoid this OS.

http://www.techweb.com/wire/software/193300234

XP is much more tolerable if one is using the "corporate" version that doesn't require activation.

Vista's activation paranoia sounds like it's going to be a freaking nightmare. Maybe if they - gasp, shock - dropped the price a bit, offered "family pack" deals the way Apple does on OS X and so on - they wouldn't have such a piracy problem and they wouldn't drive legit users insane just to briefly inconvenience a few pirates.

I did use only the corporate version until recently, when Microsoft began to require "validation" to download or install goodies sometime after SP2. I have more than enough licenses to cover everything, but it's sure a lot less flexible now.

The "Action Pack" provides about $70,000 worth of Windows, Office and other licenses for about $300 a year.

OEM licenses for XP cannot be transferred at all unless you can convince the CSR on the phone with some sob story... but as of late Microsoft has gotten really strict about this.

They seem to reset their counters for Retail licenses after about a year, so you'd have to call with a sob story if you try to reactivate before that. A handy hint is to always tell them it's the same motherboard or the old one died, even if that's a lie because they reward people who lie to them. You see, the XP license is in practice really no different from Vista's, and you are at the mercy of their beneficence to transfer you so you'd better tell them what they want to hear.

I didn't know the difference between OEM and retail licenses, but I had perceived a disparity in pricing- if Dell can sell a complete computer INCLUDING OS for about $300, but if you go to the store to buy only the OS and it costs about $180, then Dell must not be paying much for their computer components. Of course in reality they aren't paying much for Windows.

As far as I'm concerned, when you buy the OS you should be able to use it for as long as you own it. MS should be allowed to do what they can within some guidelines for fair treatment of their customers to protect their product from piracy, but they should not be allowed to keep a customer from using the product that they paid for. Lots of people are able to use their computers for a long time without feeling the need to upgrade to a new OS just because it is there. Personally I just upgraded both of our home computers to Windows XP. I didn't do it because Win98 didn't work anymore, but because I needed it to run new software. Otherwise 98 worked fine and still works fine. Also I upgrade my own computer occasionally, as I feel the need to, and put new hard drives in both home machines recently. Both machines have fairly old motherboards and I might wake up one day and decide to upgrade those. I will certainly expect to continue using the 2 retail copies of XP that I just paid lots of money for.

If your hardware stays exactly the same I don't think it will be a problem to activate over and over again.

However, if your system's MAC address changes, you're in for a hassle.

Thanks bfg9000!!

After partitioning the new drive, I did drive copy. The resulting mirror copy hung at the splash screen though. At that point I figured it was simplier to re-install manually but i didn't count on having to call it in.

RA40 said:

Thanks bfg9000!!
After partitioning the new drive, I did drive copy. The resulting mirror copy hung at the splash screen though.

Click to expand...

You were probably a victim of the goofy "drive letter" thing. The first time XP sees that new drive, it assignes "drive letters" to the partitions using the next available letter, and stores them in it's registry. When the cloned XP runs, the drive letter for the partition where it resides must be the same as it was on the old hard drive, because it's registry contains many references to it.

There's only one case where it will automatically get the drive letter right. That's where XP is on the C drive (i.e. the first partition of the hard drive), and XP doesn't see the new drive until it's been copied to the new drive.

Otherwise you must set the drive letter correctly in the cloned XP registry before the cloned XP runs. There is a DOS program called savepart.exe that can do just that. I made good use of it a few weeks ago when I ported over two XP installs from my old computer to my new one.

I run into that problem all the time too!

To reset the drive letter after removing the drive that was C:, just pop in your handy WinME startup floppy and do a FDISK /MBR at the DOS prompt.

Or boot to recovery console on the XP CD and use FIXBOOT or FIXMBR.

In the olden days with Win 9x you could clone the system with Windows Explorer instead of having to use third-party cloning tools. After using SYS (or copying io.sys and msdos.sys first), the only file that wouldn't copy in Explorer was the swapfile, and you didn't need to copy that because Windows would create a new one the first time the copied disk booted up.

Overwriting the MBR sounds like a good way to cause the drive letter assignments to be null and void.

This ought to work for the case where XP is on the "C" disk. I have many partitions and two drives and my XP installs are rarely on C. I think I'd have a better chance of winning the lottery than have XP assign it's own drive letter correctly.

I find that Western Digital's Data Lifeguard for Windows is excellent for copying partitions. It doesn't stop if it encounters a file it can't copy, and when it's done, it gives a list of uncopied files. I think it can copy almost every file.

The first time I tried copying XP I was running the XP I was copying. There were only a couple dozen files it couldn't copy but most were because I stupidly left my anti-virus running and it locked down some "Potentially Unwanted Program" files until I manually clicked on the popup window. By the way, most of these "PUPs" were in the Ultimate Boot CD for Windows folder, which is another way to do the XP copy.

I got smarter on the second attempt and ran one XP while copying the other. I also remembered to disable the virus scanner. There was only one file it couldn't copy and that was one it probably shouldn't have copied anyway. It was a file with a name something like "remote mount point" and it was in the System Volume Information folder.

One other problem to watch for if XP is installed on D: is the NTLDR is still on C:! So if C: fails or is removed, there will be no boot even though the D: is still D:

The other thing about 9x was you could just move an install to a completely different system and the 16-bit DOS compatibility mode would run well enough to let you install the new drivers instead of crashing like XP--so no need for repair installs. I've been using Vista RC2 and it too seems to tolerate being moved to different hardware just fine (though of course there would be the activation bugaboo each time). Cloning however, is a lot more complicated in Vista and requires this in a DOS box:

BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot

Great tips! :thanks:

bjn70 said:

As far as I'm concerned, when you buy the OS you should be able to use it for as long as you own it.

Click to expand...

You don't own it, Microsoft owns it. You only lease it from them.

I wondered about the Dell bit as well. You can commonly buy barebones systems for less then $400 now even at brick and mortar stores with XP Home installed but an individual has to pay $100 (I got mine for $80 on sale) just for the upgrade version. Of course the barebones systems only come with a restore cd not an individual OS cd but still I assume they must be paying pennies on the dollar compared to the retail pack.

I thought I remembered reading that each OEM license for Windows is $29 USD for system manufacturers.

Retail sucks doesn't it.