Arrghh Windows XP HE Activation!

[te]

Ok, this is the first encounter I have ever had with Home Edition, I
only use Professional and it's driving me crazy!

My neighbor has a eMachines and the MB went out on it and he has some
data and passwords he absolutely needs to have. Being the savy guy I
am, I said no problem, I can help out.

I have a spare machine here that I could get him up and running on by
popping his drive into it.

Well, as I'm sure most of you know, since it's a completely different
base system, the activation comes up, and of course th MB I have is
much newer and has a network card that is not supported out of the box
of Windows XP.

So since I couldn't activate via the Internal, because I can't even
boot into safe mode or anything else to install the network driver, I
did the 888 number.

I tried four times to speak the installation ID and also to type it in
to no avail. It says it can't find it as a valid installation ID and
then basically hangs up.

I know this is valid (unless eMachines is putting pirated copies on),
and he has never reloaded (older guy, keeps everything stock), so I'm
confused on how to get him up and running to at least retrieve his data
and passwords.

I know I can mount the drive as a secondary and copy the profiles, of
which I have actually already tried that. It all works except one of
his e-mail accounts that is in his Outlook express comes over, but
without the password (he had the box "Remember password" checked). So
the profile, previous e-mails work just fine, but the password is gone
and he doesn't remember it.

ANY HELP AVAILABLE???

I have a Corporate Edition of XP if needed, but it didn't give any
"Upgrade" options.

Ack!#$@#$ Grumble grumble, grrr, grr....

 

[Malke]

Ok, this is the first encounter I have ever had with Home Edition, I
only use Professional and it's driving me crazy!

My neighbor has a eMachines and the MB went out on it and he has some
data and passwords he absolutely needs to have. Being the savy guy I
am, I said no problem, I can help out.

I have a spare machine here that I could get him up and running on by
popping his drive into it.

Well, as I'm sure most of you know, since it's a completely different
base system, the activation comes up, and of course th MB I have is
much newer and has a network card that is not supported out of the box
of Windows XP.

(snip long story)

The drive from the eMachine will only work in an eMachine with that
particular motherboard - it is BIOS-locked. This is why you can't
activate it from your machine.

What you should have done is simply slaved his hard drive in your
machine and copied over his data from within your Windows installation.
You could still do this.

Or leave his drive in your machine and boot with a rescue system like
Knoppix or a Bart's PE and copy off the data that way.

Malke

 

[Ghostrider]

Ok, this is the first encounter I have ever had with Home Edition, I
only use Professional and it's driving me crazy!

My neighbor has a eMachines and the MB went out on it and he has some
data and passwords he absolutely needs to have. Being the savy guy I
am, I said no problem, I can help out.

I have a spare machine here that I could get him up and running on by
popping his drive into it.

Well, as I'm sure most of you know, since it's a completely different
base system, the activation comes up, and of course th MB I have is
much newer and has a network card that is not supported out of the box
of Windows XP.

So since I couldn't activate via the Internal, because I can't even
boot into safe mode or anything else to install the network driver, I
did the 888 number.

I tried four times to speak the installation ID and also to type it in
to no avail. It says it can't find it as a valid installation ID and
then basically hangs up.

I know this is valid (unless eMachines is putting pirated copies on),
and he has never reloaded (older guy, keeps everything stock), so I'm
confused on how to get him up and running to at least retrieve his data
and passwords.

I know I can mount the drive as a secondary and copy the profiles, of
which I have actually already tried that. It all works except one of
his e-mail accounts that is in his Outlook express comes over, but
without the password (he had the box "Remember password" checked). So
the profile, previous e-mails work just fine, but the password is gone
and he doesn't remember it.

ANY HELP AVAILABLE???

Unfortunately, your computer is not an eMachines unir and
the activation of Windows XP on the original hard drive, being
OEM-specific for the eMachines computer is no longer valid
whilst in your computer. About the best option would be to
have eMachines service replace the motherboard with another
one for which the eMachines verion of Windows XP is bios-locked.

I have a Corporate Edition of XP if needed, but it didn't give any
"Upgrade" options.

"Corporate"? No such version. Do you mean a Volume License
version of Windows XP?

 

[te]

Yes, I mean the VL version. The guy has already placed an order for a
new machine and it should be here by mid-week or so.

So I'm taking from this, he's pretty much sol in regards to getting the
password back?

 

[MichaelHensley]

Yes, I mean the VL version. The guy has already placed an order for a
new machine and it should be here by mid-week or so.

So I'm taking from this, he's pretty much sol in regards to getting the
password back?

There are programs to recover passwords from Outlook Express. I don't know
if any of them will work in your situation, but Google for something like
"outlook express password recovery" and see what you can find.

Good luck!

 

[Malke]

Yes, I mean the VL version. The guy has already placed an order for a
new machine and it should be here by mid-week or so.

So I'm taking from this, he's pretty much sol in regards to getting
the password back?

An easy solution to that is for him to contact his ISP and get the
password changed. All major ISP's have the ability to do this. Some of
them, like Comcast, even let you do it during a Live Chat session.

Malke

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Ok, this is the first encounter I have ever had with Home Edition, I
only use Professional and it's driving me crazy!

My neighbor has a eMachines and the MB went out on it and he has some
data and passwords he absolutely needs to have.

So they were backed up, right?

Being the savy guy I
am, I said no problem, I can help out.

No comment....

I have a spare machine here that I could get him up and running on by
popping his drive into it.

Well, as I'm sure most of you know, since it's a completely different
base system, the activation comes up, and of course th MB I have is
much newer and has a network card that is not supported out of the box
of Windows XP.

Normally, and assuming a retail license (many factory-installed OEM
installations are BIOS-locked to a specific chipset and therefore *not*
transferable to a new motherboard - check yours before starting), unless
the new motherboard is virtually identical (same chipset, same IDE
controllers, same BIOS version, etc.) to the one on which the WinXP
installation was originally performed, you'll need to perform a repair
(a.k.a. in-place upgrade) installation, at the very least:

How to Perform an In-Place Upgrade of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/directory/article.asp?ID=KB;EN-US;Q315341

Changing a Motherboard or Moving a Hard Drive with WinXP Installed
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/moving_xp.html

The "why" is quite simple, really, and has nothing to do with
licensing issues, per se; it's a purely technical matter, at this point.
You've pulled the proverbial hardware rug out from under the OS. (If
you don't like -- or get -- the rug analogy, think of it as picking up a
Cape Cod style home and then setting it down onto a Ranch style
foundation. It just isn't going to fit.) WinXP, like Win2K before it,
is not nearly as "promiscuous" as Win9x when it comes to accepting any
old hardware configuration you throw at it. On installation it
"tailors" itself to the specific hardware found. This is one of the
reasons that the entire WinNT/2K/XP OS family is so much more stable
than the Win9x group.

As always when undertaking such a significant change, back up any
important data before starting.

This will also probably require re-activation, unless you have a
Volume Licensed version of WinXP Pro installed. If it's been more than
120 days since you last activated that specific Product Key, you'll most
likely be able to activate via the Internet without problem. If it's
been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone call.

So since I couldn't activate via the Internal, because I can't even
boot into safe mode or anything else to install the network driver, I
did the 888 number.

I tried four times to speak the installation ID and also to type it in
to no avail. It says it can't find it as a valid installation ID and
then basically hangs up.

I know this is valid (unless eMachines is putting pirated copies on),
and he has never reloaded (older guy, keeps everything stock), so I'm
confused on how to get him up and running to at least retrieve his data
and passwords.

An eMachines OEM installation is BIOS-locked to the original
motherboard. It will never activate on any motherboard not provided by
eMachines.

I know I can mount the drive as a secondary and copy the profiles, of
which I have actually already tried that. It all works except one of
his e-mail accounts that is in his Outlook express comes over, but
without the password (he had the box "Remember password" checked). So
the profile, previous e-mails work just fine, but the password is gone
and he doesn't remember it.

Hope you friend remembers his password; if not, he's lost his email.



--

Bruce Chambers

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