Only 3 days to activate !

[RJK]

To keep in practice, I put together a couple of weeks ago, (with tender
loving care), a cheap system box, and just to test it out I installed my
copy of XP Home ed. SP2/slipstream into it. A couple of days ago I bought a
flat panel monitor and graphics card with DVI for my main PC (not the
cheapy), so I put my "old" Nvidia MX440 graphics card into the cheapy
thinking it might be better than the onboard grahics chip on the motherboard
in the "cheapy." If nothing else, should the monitor lead get yanked, it
won't damage the main block of connectors on the motherboard. ...I digresss
!! ...as usual

I bought several other odds and ends including a copy of XP Home ed.SP2 OEM,
to sell with the "cheapy." Just did a repair install with the new XP Home
ed. SP2 OEM cd and entered the new license key, and after it finished and
rebooted, I was having a poke around Windows and the activation balloon
suddenly changed to just 3 days left to activate. I wanted longer than that
so that I've got plenty of time to tweak up some security layers before
selling it to sombody who's probably going to bugger it all up anyway but,
there you go !

So, obviously XP Home edition decided that because it had already been in
there it wasn't going to give me another 30 days, so I'm zero-filling the
hard disk - whole disk, not just the first 63 bytes, in case MS have other
dirty tricks up their sleeves !

Is it normally the case that XP Home ed. SP2 OEM defaults to 3 days to
activate, after a Repair install, and did it do that because it detected
that a different license key and cd had been used to perform the repair
install ?

regards, Richard

 

[Harry Ohrn]

To keep in practice, I put together a couple of weeks ago, (with tender
loving care), a cheap system box, and just to test it out I installed my
copy of XP Home ed. SP2/slipstream into it. A couple of days ago I bought a
flat panel monitor and graphics card with DVI for my main PC (not the
cheapy), so I put my "old" Nvidia MX440 graphics card into the cheapy
thinking it might be better than the onboard grahics chip on the motherboard
in the "cheapy." If nothing else, should the monitor lead get yanked, it
won't damage the main block of connectors on the motherboard. ...I digresss
!! ...as usual

I bought several other odds and ends including a copy of XP Home ed.SP2 OEM,
to sell with the "cheapy." Just did a repair install with the new XP Home
ed. SP2 OEM cd and entered the new license key, and after it finished and
rebooted, I was having a poke around Windows and the activation balloon
suddenly changed to just 3 days left to activate. I wanted longer than that
so that I've got plenty of time to tweak up some security layers before
selling it to sombody who's probably going to bugger it all up anyway but,
there you go !

So, obviously XP Home edition decided that because it had already been in
there it wasn't going to give me another 30 days, so I'm zero-filling the
hard disk - whole disk, not just the first 63 bytes, in case MS have other
dirty tricks up their sleeves !

Is it normally the case that XP Home ed. SP2 OEM defaults to 3 days to
activate, after a Repair install, and did it do that because it detected
that a different license key and cd had been used to perform the repair
install ?

regards, Richard

Actually Microsoft doesn't have "dirty tricks" up their sleeves. Granted
they do things that some people dislike, they error on the side of caution
at times, and they might come across as condescending but they are not
trying to be covertly deceitful. Running a Repair Install as you did could
easily change the grace period as the grace period is essentially meant for
new installs. You might have not been offered any grace period at all after
running a Repair Install. Look at it this way. I could install XP and get a
30 day grace period then every 29 days run a Repair Install and get another
grace period. By doing this indefinitely I wouldn't have to activate thereby
defeating WPA. However that scheme has been thought through. So what you
saw was likely normal behaviour on the part of the installer and not an
attempt to deceive you. Fortunately you no longer have to worry about this
as you can do a brand new fresh install with the new version of XP.

For what it is worth running a low level format on your drive isn't going to
affect activation and was a complete waste of time.

 

[RJK]

All true ...I just felt like having a moan, and to be honest, I did have
other reasons for wanting to install it from scratch. When I get around to
plugging my adsl signal into it and dragging it up to date, if it's within 3
days, then your last point is also true

BTW a zero-fill is not a "low level format" - even though in some hd
manufacturers utilities it's still referred to as such.
http://www.pcguide.com/ref/hdd/geom/formatUtilities-c.html
"Hard drive manufacturers have created for modern drives replacements for
the old LLF utilities. They cause some confusion, because they are often
still called "low-level format" utilities. The name is incorrect because,
again, no utility that a user can run on a PC can LLF a modern drive. A more
proper name for this sort of program is a zero-fill and diagnostic utility.
This software does work on the drive at a low level, usually including the
following functions (and perhaps others):
"When most users today talk about "low-level formatting" a drive, what they
are really talking about is doing a zero-fill. That procedure will restore a
functional drive (that is, one that does not have mechanical problems) to
the condition it was in when received from the factory. There are occasions
when a modern hard disk can become so badly corrupted that the operating
system cannot recover it, and a zero-fill can help in this situation.
Stubborn boot sector viruses for example can be hard to eradicate without
resorting to low-level intervention. Since the zero-fill cleans all programs
and data off the drive it will get rid of almost any data-related problem on
the drive, such as viruses, corrupted partitions and the like. Just remember
that it's a bit like burning down your house to get rid of termites: you
lose everything on the drive."

regards, Richard