XP Re-Activation

[Mike Schmieg]

I have a laptop which has been running XP Pro for about 9
months now. About three weeks ago, I replaced the hard
drive and then I acquired a second hard drive to use in
the media bay for backup purposes which I switch out with
the floppy depending on my needs at the time. About a
week after installing the media bay drive, while at home,
XP indicated that hardware changes required a
reactivation. I did this with no problem. Earlier today,
at the office, about a week after the reactivation, it
again said that I had to activate Windows. When I tried
to do this, it refused saying that I had activated too
many times.

I use three different hardware profiles on this laptop, a
home dock, office dock and undocked. Each profile has
different NICs activated (home has an MPCI wireless card
activated, work has a docking station 10/100 NIC
activated and undocked has both the wireless and the
internal 10/100 activated). At any time, I may have the
2nd hard drive or a floppy drive in the case depending on
my usage.

When XP refused my activation, I didn't have my XP disk
and key avaialable since they were at home. XP said I had
three days to activate. Upon arriving home, I set the
machine up and got the CD and key and prepared to call MS
to get the thing going, but when I started the activation
again, it went fine.

Now, my quesiton is when I return to the office on
Monday, should I take my CD and key with me because it
will think it is a different machine again or is this
just a temporary glitch. If the former, am I going to
have to keep calling MS periodically just to keep Windows
running on my laptop. All of this sure makes me miss OS/2.

 

[D.Currie]

You don't need the CD or the key to activate.

 

[Guest]

Thanks. Last year, I had to reactivate Office XP Pro on
another computer after adding two new hard drives and a
CD Writer to the machine and MS wanted my key so I
assumed the same would be the case here.

It still begs the issue whether this is going to be an
ongoing problem as I use the media bay switch off more
and more, something which I rarely did in the past.

 

[tan]

Actually you do need the cd to activate you just may not
need it every time but if they ask for it you need to
provide it

Tan.

 

[hermes]

I have a laptop which has been running XP Pro for about 9
months now. About three weeks ago, I replaced the hard
drive and then I acquired a second hard drive to use in
the media bay for backup purposes which I switch out with
the floppy depending on my needs at the time. About a
week after installing the media bay drive, while at home,
XP indicated that hardware changes required a
reactivation. I did this with no problem. Earlier today,
at the office, about a week after the reactivation, it
again said that I had to activate Windows. When I tried
to do this, it refused saying that I had activated too
many times.

I use three different hardware profiles on this laptop, a
home dock, office dock and undocked. Each profile has
different NICs activated (home has an MPCI wireless card
activated, work has a docking station 10/100 NIC
activated and undocked has both the wireless and the
internal 10/100 activated). At any time, I may have the
2nd hard drive or a floppy drive in the case depending on
my usage.

When XP refused my activation, I didn't have my XP disk
and key avaialable since they were at home. XP said I had
three days to activate. Upon arriving home, I set the
machine up and got the CD and key and prepared to call MS
to get the thing going, but when I started the activation
again, it went fine.

Now, my quesiton is when I return to the office on
Monday, should I take my CD and key with me because it
will think it is a different machine again or is this
just a temporary glitch. If the former, am I going to
have to keep calling MS periodically just to keep Windows
running on my laptop. All of this sure makes me miss OS/2.

Doesn't it though? If it requests activation again, you may need to
call M$. If this happens, just do it, you should be fine with the
exception of the inconvenient phone call.

--
hermes
DRM sux! Treacherous Computing kills our virtual civil liberties!
http://protectfreedom.tripod.com/index.html
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
http://anti-dmca.org/
http://www.eff.org/IP/DMCA/unintended_consequences.php

Windows XP crashed.
I am the Blue Screen of Death.
No one hears your screams

 

[Alex Nichol]

Thanks. Last year, I had to reactivate Office XP Pro on
another computer after adding two new hard drives and a
CD Writer to the machine and MS wanted my key so I
assumed the same would be the case here.

It still begs the issue whether this is going to be an
ongoing problem as I use the media bay switch off more
and more, something which I rarely did in the past.

What may be happening is that the enabling and disabling of the plug in
drive is being seen as a change of hardware and in effect confusing the
hardware profile seen at boot. It *ought* not to, but disabling things
can have such effects. In particular disabling a LAN port can make a
lot of difference. Once you have it activated again, by phone, I would
back up the windows\system32\wpa.dbl and wpa.bak files (to a floppy if
your laptop has one) and should it happen again, restore the hardware
configuration to its present state, then boot with F8 to Safe mode and
copy them back, and reboot.

The 'activated too many times' means it no longer looks like the
original machine so the automatic activation refuses - you have to boot
to Safe mode, and run
Start - All Programs - Accessories - System Tools - Activate Windows
to Activate by phone, calling a toll free number that will be given