Activate now or later?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Sam
  • Start date Start date
S

Sam

hi folks, i just got a new PC and have installed XP on it which i
bought original & boxed.

it said i have 30days to activate. i decided not to activate
immediately.

a week later and now i want to add 2 network cards for home networking
& cable internet to the PC and then activate my XP after. but i am
worried that since i had already completed setup it will deactivate my
XP and require telephone reactivation-although i should have nothing
to fear i would prefer to avoid it, like people dont like going
through metal detectors in airports or experiencing IRS tax audits.

my question is this: is the hardware scan to compute ID performed
during setup or at the time of internet activation?

I read a very informative link http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php but it
mentions in one place that scanning is done during setup and in
another it mentioned activation time. is it done twice?

if scanning is done during setup then i will prefer to erase
unactivated XP add the cards and resinstall xp fresh and then
activate.


Sam
 
Add the cards and activate normally over the internet. If you did not
activate yet, Microsoft has no way of knowing that the cards have been added
after your original setup!

Be happy!
 
Go ahead and install the cards, then activate the system.
Just be sure to activate it before the 30 days is up.
Otherwise you will have to reinstall the whole works.
And
You can re-activate the system as many times as you want as long as it is on
the original computer.
 
You should just go ahead and activate regardless of what you plan on doing to the OS in the future. If you change more than six components(hardware) then you will need to reactivate over the phone but the actual wpa.dbl file that is encrypted with your system info and configuration is done during the activation. Be warned: If you fail to activate before the 30 day period a time bomb will go off and your OS will be inacessible until you do activate. Once you have activated go into the windows\system32 folder and copy the wpa.dbl to a floppy disk. Then if you need to reinstall XP at a future date you won't have to go on line or on the phone to activate. You simply bypass the activation when installing and then copy the wpa.dbl file from the floppy back into the windows\system32 folder and you are activated. Don't bother trying to read this file it is heavily encrypted with your system info and the time of activation. This file is only good for the machine that it was created on and is not a means of bypassing activation on other machines. Have fun {:~)
 
Sam said:
hi folks, i just got a new PC and have installed XP on it which i
bought original & boxed.

it said i have 30days to activate. i decided not to activate
immediately.

a week later and now i want to add 2 network cards for home networking
& cable internet to the PC and then activate my XP after. but i am
worried that since i had already completed setup it will deactivate my
XP and require telephone reactivation-although i should have nothing
to fear i would prefer to avoid it, like people dont like going
through metal detectors in airports or experiencing IRS tax audits.

my question is this: is the hardware scan to compute ID performed
during setup or at the time of internet activation?
Click to expand...

At the time of activation. If you are intending to make changes like
that immediately after setup it is sensible to wait and do them, then
activate (but don't leave it too long). This applies particularly with
network cards, as one present at activation and retained thereafter
carries triple weight in assessing if hardware has changed. So get them
installed and operational before activating.
 
That's great, so if you have 6 computers with exactly the same configuration
you could install XP on one machine then activate and ghost them to all the
other 5 :-)
 
That's great, so if you have 6 computers with exactly the same configuration
you could install XP on one machine then activate and ghost them to all the
other 5 :-)
Click to expand...

I wondered the same thing too at first but then somebody explained that even
though you may install identical hardware the WPA program will know that they
are different because they have different serial numbers. Also each machine
with a NIC has it's own unique MAC address and the NIC counts as three votes
when Windows is checking the current hardware configuration with what was on
the machine at the time of activation.
Here's a link that many people have posted that explains about WPA. You might
want to follow the links on that page too.
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php
 
Clayton said:
That's great, so if you have 6 computers with exactly the same configuration
you could install XP on one machine then activate and ghost them to all the
other 5 :-)
Click to expand...

You would then need to take steps to provide each with its independent
Product Key for activation. The hardware hash sig of the machines, sent
in to activate, will *not* match, including things that will be unique,
like physical MAC address and HD serial number. You can on each though
start activation by phone, and there is a point where you can change the
Key to one for the specific machine. This will certainly speed up
deployment over a limited number of identical machines. Once you get to
five or more you can look into Volume licensing (though it has its
disadvantages and at small numbers is likely to cost more than buying
independent retail copies at a discount store)
 
Greetings --

As far as I know, the only requirement is to buy a minimum of 5
"seats." Anyone can do this, but I'd be very surprised if one
couldn't find 5 retail licenses more cheaply via a discount retail
outlet.

Bruce Chambers
--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. - RAH
 
I was reading the licenses info. I could not figure out if
activation is required on them or not.

I think you also have to renew the licenses each year. (I may have
read that wrong)

Greg R
 

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