activation

[Guest]

i installed xp home. and i put off activing it. my question is my bois is way
out of date, and am saving up the money to upgrade. if i activate windows now
and then upgrade my bois, will windows want to reactivate? i just want to
spare my the least amount of trouble with this. wait for the bois up grade
or go ahead and activate now? thanks

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Jaz

Why are you saving money to upgrade your BIOS?.. it can be done for free..
next question.. why do you want or need to upgrade your BIOS?.. is the
computer not working the way that it should?..

Activate your OS..

 

[Manny Borges]

I think he means motherboard.

And he probaly intends to do it himself.




So, JAZ, don't activate. Tell me what happens in 30 days. p)

--
Manny Borges
MCSE NT4-2003 (+ Security)
MCT, Certified Cheese Master

There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who do understand binary
and those who don't.

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Manny

For a good two minutes, I sat pondering what a BOIS might be..

 

[Tom [Pepper] Willett]

It's almost the capital of Idaho!

Tom

Manny

For a good two minutes, I sat pondering what a BOIS might be..

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Manny

For a good two minutes, I sat pondering what a BOIS might be..

It's French for "Tree."

--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

 

[Guest]

how is it done for free? i ran everest home editon and my mobo is 8 yrs old
and it said my bois is out of date. i have metatrends. was directed to
esupport and they charge for upgrades. thanks

 

[Mike Hall - MS MVP Windows Shell/User]

Go to the motherboard manufacturer website.. they may still have a BIOS
upgrade, even for a mobo that is 8 years old..

 

[Guest]

thanks, ill check into that.

Go to the motherboard manufacturer website.. they may still have a BIOS
upgrade, even for a mobo that is 8 years old..

 

[Guest]

Mike,

I bought a bios upgrade from esupport for my HP Pavilion desktop because the
HP supplied bios does not support hyperthreading and is in general very old,
and HP won't provide an update. I did not know that MS had decided that bios
upgrades invalidate your Win XP product key and lock you out of Windows. HP
won't help, I've got no idea where to turn to. I need the upgrade (I did
back it out for now) but I don't know how to deal with the activation issue.
Thanks, Ron

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Mike,

I bought a bios upgrade from esupport for my HP Pavilion desktop because the
HP supplied bios does not support hyperthreading and is in general very old,
and HP won't provide an update.

Did it ever occur to you that there might have been sound technical
reasons for HP's not providing a specific BIOS update?

I did not know that MS had decided that bios
upgrades invalidate your Win XP product key and lock you out of Windows.

Microsoft decided no such thing. It was entirely HP's decision to lock
that OEM license to the original BIOS of the computer, as an additional
copy-protection feature.

HP
won't help,

Well, no. Why should they? You'd deliberately voided your warranty
and support agreements by installing an unsupported BIOS update from a
third party.

I've got no idea where to turn to. I need the upgrade ...

Why? What specicific high resource demanding application do you need
to run? Some sort of advanced graphics design program?

(I did
back it out for now) but I don't know how to deal with the activation issue.
Thanks, Ron

If you really have such a need, seemly buy a better computer (HP
Pavilions are designed as low-end consumer grade products) and a retail
license.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Guest]

Where do I begin? HP wants people to abandon older but still decent PC's,
IMHO. For instance, HP tells you that the PC in question, a fairly high end
customized Pavilion, only takes 1 gig ram. As per their site, their techs,
etc. Mobo designed for 2 gig, and it runs far better with 2. As to the bios
issue itself, fine, lock XP to the bios, but MS should give people a
reasonable opportunity, if they get a new mobo or bios, to reactivate without
buing a new copy of XP. That bios upgrade would let me use hyperthreading,
and with a 3.06 ghz ht Pentium vs the original 2.26ghz non-ht the pc would be
far faster at things like transferring my hi8 videos to dvd. That and the 2
gig of ram. And by the way, the inability to upgrade the bios and keep
activated was an MS decision that took effect in March 2005, long after I
bought this PC. BTW, the bios provider also provides bug fixes, better power
management and more in the bios upgrade, all things that HP could do, but
won't. I don't care - I don't mind paying for the new bios, just that I
can't use it. Of course the bios provider should provide warnings of this
problem, and does not.

 

[guest]

And the "m$ mvp" people claim that it "only takes 5 minutes" to "activate".

Your situation reveals that one should NOT buy a pc from hp or "compaq".

Recently I installed a newer bios dated 2002 so that I could boot dos from
a usb flash drive; even if the boot didn't work for me, I didn't need to
re-activate winxp for my old msi motherboard.

I did have to re-activate when I changed the case for future upgrade to
a motherboard that has a 24-pin power supply; I think I had only changed
the slot for the audio card but may also have changed the slot for the
network card.

Just shows that one doesn't have to change "hardware" for m$ to require
an activation; just change the cards to different slots.

 

[Guest]

I know the feeling.

Does anyone have any viable idea on how I can get reactivated without buying
a new copy of XP (assuming that would even work)?

 

[Bob I]

You "bought" a package from HP, the "operating system" came as part of
the package. HP supports the package. If you want to use the operating
system that HP provided, you shouldn't "break the package".

 

[Guest]

That's absurd. In the 5 years since HP last updated this bios, there have
been many improvements in the OS - XP, and in CPU's compatible with this PC.
But HP consistently discourages people from upgrading at least this PC. For
instance, telling owners that it only supports 1 gig ram (that both from the
web site and their techs) when the mobo is built for 2 gig. The pc works
fine that way. The only reason for the bios update being an issue was that
HP decided to preactivate XP the cheapest way they could. Of course, at that
time, MS had not yet changed XP to be quite so nasty about bios changes on XP
pre-activations - that happened 2 years ago. BTW, I paid $50 for tech
support, whose response to me was to try reinstalling XP from scratch (wiping
out everything) with the hope that it would work. The fact that the techs
didn't know that they could work with MS to deal with this (their own web
site makes it clear there is a fix) is pitiful. That their english
comprehension was poor, that the audio quality on the call was not that good,
that after I asked to talk to a manager they put me on abandoned hold (I hung
up after 1 hour) - none of this says much for their tech support. BTW, their
customer service at HP hq agreed - I'm supposed to get my money back. But
all I really want is to know that if I reflash the bios I can get reactivated.

 

[Bob I]

If you flash the BIOS BACK to original you SHOULD be able to put the
operating system right back on the box as you would if it was new. I
don't use HP boxes and don't recommend them.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

That's absurd.

No, that's reality. And it's nothing new.

In the 5 years since HP last updated this bios, there have
been many improvements in the OS - XP, and in CPU's compatible with this PC.

So? That's called progress. Did your original purchase come with some
sort of guarantee that technology would remain static until you were
ready to move on?

But HP consistently discourages people from upgrading at least this PC. For
instance, telling owners that it only supports 1 gig ram (that both from the
web site and their techs) when the mobo is built for 2 gig. The pc works
fine that way. The only reason for the bios update being an issue was that
HP decided to preactivate XP the cheapest way they could.

If you've a beef with HP's business practices, take it up with them.
No one here can do anything about it, other than advise you not to buy
any more HP products if you're not happy with HP.

Of course, at that
time, MS had not yet changed XP to be quite so nasty about bios changes on XP
pre-activations - that happened 2 years ago.

The only change Microsoft made was to disable Internet activations for
major OEM installations. you can still activate via telephone; it takes
only minutes. I know, I've done it many, many times on machines
(including HP's) that I've repaired.

BTW, I paid $50 for tech
support, whose response to me was to try reinstalling XP from scratch (wiping
out everything) with the hope that it would work. The fact that the techs
didn't know that they could work with MS to deal with this (their own web
site makes it clear there is a fix) is pitiful. That their english
comprehension was poor, that the audio quality on the call was not that good,
that after I asked to talk to a manager they put me on abandoned hold (I hung
up after 1 hour) - none of this says much for their tech support. BTW, their
customer service at HP hq agreed - I'm supposed to get my money back. But
all I really want is to know that if I reflash the bios I can get reactivated.

Again, and I don't know how to make this any simpler, your issue is
with HP, not Microsoft. You're just wasting your time posting about
this issue here. Contact HP.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

 

[Guest]

I got on here to ask for help and advice on how to get reactivation post
flashing the bios. Note that I had rolled back to the original bios and XP
is working normally, but the PC needs the bios upgrade. And to do that I
need to be able to reactivate after posting.

One other note - PC architecture is 'open', designed to be upgraded. For
any vendor (MS, HP, etc.) to put in roadblocks defeats the idea of open
design. To do it after the purchase - MS modifed XP 2 years ago in this
regard, is, IMHO, even worse. Still, I got on here because I'm told that HP
and/or MS could reactivate, and I was looking for advice on how to make that
happen.