problem activating windows

[Guest]

Hello. I am having a rather unique problem, and through a certain series of
events, i can't actually e-mail microsoft because i cant actually get onto
Windows and i need to use IE. right now i'm using Ubuntu and Firefox.
Anyway, i installed Windows XP Pro with SP2 and then after it was installed
i activated it. it did not bother me any more about it needing to be
activated. However, after 30 days from the installation, it gives me the
message "you must activate this copy of windows in order to keep using it.
would you like to activate now?" if i click no, it logs me off. if i click
yes, it says "You have already activated this copy of windows." and there is
just an OK button. if i click the button, it still logs me off!
Is there any way i can fix this? i have a lot of programs installed and set
up on that XP installation. AND it won't even let me enter in a new product
key, it just automatically says it is activated. what should i do?? i should
mention that my technical knowledge is very high. my current setup has a dual
boot with XP and Ubuntu, so at least i can get online . keep in mind that
Ubuntu cannot run .exe files. Any help would be great, thank you!

 

[TaurArian [MS-MVP]]

To remove the message that you are already activated, you can force activation on reboot.
If the wpa.dbl and wpa.bak become corrupted, they can cause a problem.
Reboot in "Safe Mode".
Rename the wpa.dbl and wpa.bak files located in the\Windows\system32 folder
Now the message should be removed and you can now reactivate.

Info -
You are prompted to activate Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 every time that you start
the computer
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/312295

Preserving OEM Pre-Activation when Re-installing Windows XP
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/oempreac.mspx


--
====================================
TaurArian [MS-MVP] 2005-2008 - Australia
====================================
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| Hello. I am having a rather unique problem, and through a certain series of
| events, i can't actually e-mail microsoft because i cant actually get onto
| Windows and i need to use IE. right now i'm using Ubuntu and Firefox.
| Anyway, i installed Windows XP Pro with SP2 and then after it was installed
| i activated it. it did not bother me any more about it needing to be
| activated. However, after 30 days from the installation, it gives me the
| message "you must activate this copy of windows in order to keep using it.
| would you like to activate now?" if i click no, it logs me off. if i click
| yes, it says "You have already activated this copy of windows." and there is
| just an OK button. if i click the button, it still logs me off!
| Is there any way i can fix this? i have a lot of programs installed and set
| up on that XP installation. AND it won't even let me enter in a new product
| key, it just automatically says it is activated. what should i do?? i should
| mention that my technical knowledge is very high. my current setup has a dual
| boot with XP and Ubuntu, so at least i can get online . keep in mind that
| Ubuntu cannot run .exe files. Any help would be great, thank you!

 

[Guest]

Thank you very much. i did not know i was able to get into Safe Mode. it's
all fixed now - i'm currently writing this from the original version of XP i
installed. awesome!