Windows XP Home Product Activation Problem

[dc]

My PC has been running fine for the past 2+ years. Last week all of a sudden
Windows was telling me that my hardware configuration had changed and that I
had to reactivate windows. Howver when I would click the 'keys' in the
taskbar to recativate nothing would happen. There is also no link in the
start menu-accessories/system tools to activate windows. There is very few
files and folders in the system32/oobe folder on the c: Now I can't log onto
windows at all. At the login screen when i login it tells me that i must
activate windows in order to log on. If I click yes it just logs me out and
goes back to the same login screen.

How do I fix this?

 

[Leythos]

How do I fix this?

There should be a way to CALL, it's normally something you can click
that gives you the phone number.

 

[dc]

The activation program would not even run [it seems to be missing from my pc;
there are only a few files and folders in the system32/oobe folder] and now i
can not even log on to the pc. It asks if I want to activate when I log in
but if I click yes it only boots into windows for a second before logging me
out again and basically doing the same thing. It just goes round and round
in circles.

 

[Leythos]

The activation program would not even run [it seems to be missing from my pc;
there are only a few files and folders in the system32/oobe folder] and now i
can not even log on to the pc. It asks if I want to activate when I log in
but if I click yes it only boots into windows for a second before logging me
out again and basically doing the same thing. It just goes round and round
in circles.

It sounds as though your machine is compromised and that has caused the
activation to be triggered. Why not just wipe it and reinstall windows,
you should be able to recover your files/documents from the backups
you've been doing all these years.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

My PC has been running fine for the past 2+ years. Last week all of a
sudden
Windows was telling me that my hardware configuration had changed and that
I
had to reactivate windows. Howver when I would click the 'keys' in the
taskbar to recativate nothing would happen. There is also no link in the
start menu-accessories/system tools to activate windows. There is very
few
files and folders in the system32/oobe folder on the c: Now I can't log
onto
windows at all. At the login screen when i login it tells me that i must
activate windows in order to log on. If I click yes it just logs me out
and
goes back to the same login screen.

How do I fix this?

Unfortunately, your XP install may have entered into a condition from which
the only practical recovery is a clean install of Windows.

While unusual, it can happen that the activation notification appears, but
*never* takes you to the screens that allow you to re-activate either
online or by phone. I've usually had this happen during a repair install,
coupled with changing the product key.

However it's happened, you likey can not log in to any account in any mode;
Windows insists you have to activate but won't let you.

In that case, the only real recourse is to either back up your data, and
re-run the install starting with formatting the disk, or, get a new hard
disk (this is not expensive), remove the old one and set it aside as your
backup. Install XP to the new drive, and once it's up and running simply
attach the old drive and copy your data back over.

While it seems drastic, installing a new drive can be the fastest and safest
way to recover from this.

HTH
-pk