DL said:
You locate the xp installation disk, or obtain a replacement
A personal comment. The advice DL gave is correct. But the policy greatly
annoys me, and it should result in massive complaints. There should be a
warning that the same CD that was originally used to install XP will be
required to do a "upgrade" operation (or, more precisely, a re-install of XP
over itself to affect a repair without loosing what was added by the user)
after the machine was purchased with XP pre-installed by an OEM).
Microsoft advises on their website that XP be re-installed over itself under
certain situations. The product must be activated and licensed if it is to
keep working more than 30 days from the original usage of XP. The user name,
address, and phone number is absolutely required for that license in order
to activate. Without up front and clear warning to the contrary for the user
AT THE TIME OF ACTIVATION, a user might reasonably attempt to use the
upgrade function to do nothing more than repair their own properly licensed
version of XP, and use a different CD than was used to originally install XP
with because the OEM did not provide one.
When the XP being repaired is properly licensed by the user as REQUIRED, and
the repair operation is being performed by or in behalf of that license
holder, there is *no* good reason to allow the recommended "update" repair
process to get to the point W ITHOUT PRIOR WARNING where the computer can
not be used at all because the CD being used is not the one used by the OEM.
Valid licenses are involved, the repair product could detect that fact and
allow the repair to work.
This should be addressed before world wide class action lawsuits result,
because it requires the re-purchase of an already properly licensed product.
And that sucks. Meanwhile, the moral is: insist that XP be given to you on a
separate CD when you buy a new computer that comes with XP. Otherwise there
is no help if you get burned this way, and you will have to pay twice for a
license if you want to keep what you have on the computer instead of doing a
complete wipeout and restore using the OEM provided restoration CD's. Why
must the user license the OEM version only to find out TOO LATE that a
repair "update" attempt will result in complete and immediate lockout and
data loss and the product can not even then be used for a 30 day period?
Yet another reason to do full backups, with something like Ghost 2003, so
that a lockout can be recovered from and other procedures than an "update"
repair operation can be attempted. Microsoft has been known to REFUSE to
give a new activation code under the above described conditions. That truly
sucks.
