Re-installing Windows XP

[Guest]

My system is kind of messed up and I want to give it a clean start by
re-formatting the hard disk and re-install XP.
Does anybody know if that will give me problems with registering (again)
after I re-installed XP?

I have also read somewhere it is as simple as saving a copy of the WPA.DBL
from the \windows\system32 directory and copy it back in after re-installing.
Anybody knows if this is a safe method to do this?

Nothing will change on my computer from a hardware point of view. The whole
configuration will stay the same, the only thing I want to give my PC a
complete new clean start.

Thanks for any help provided!

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

If you are going to reformat your drive and reinstall
Windows XP, you cannot save the WPA.DBL file for
reuse....its unnecessary. Simply activate via the internet
when prompted to do so. If that should fail, then use
the alternative option to "activate by phone".

How to activate Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307890/en-us

Clean Install Windows XP
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/cleanxpinstall.html

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows - Shell/User
Microsoft Community Newsgroups
news://msnews.microsoft.com/

---------------------------------------------------------------------------­----------------

:

| My system is kind of messed up and I want to give it a clean start by
| re-formatting the hard disk and re-install XP.
| Does anybody know if that will give me problems with registering (again)
| after I re-installed XP?
|
| I have also read somewhere it is as simple as saving a copy of the WPA.DBL
| from the \windows\system32 directory and copy it back in after re-installing.
| Anybody knows if this is a safe method to do this?
|
| Nothing will change on my computer from a hardware point of view. The whole
| configuration will stay the same, the only thing I want to give my PC a
| complete new clean start.
|
| Thanks for any help provided!

 

[John Barnett MVP]

The WPA.DBL will be useless on a reformatted drive so it is pointless
keeping it. Although this is a 'supposed' work around to prevent
re-activation i have never got it to work. Any time i have tired this so
called 'fix' the activation window has always popped up to say i need to
activate. I much prefer to image my drive using Norton Ghost, or something
similar - everything then remain intact. Obviously if you change any
hardware you will, of course, be forced to re-activate regardless of having
a ghosted image.

The easiest thing to do is re-install windows ( you can find details of
re-installing on my website http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org Click the Win
XP Faq button and take a look at question 7 and 41 for
reformatting/partitioning and question 85 for an illustrated guide to
re-installing windows xp) and then re-activate.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org

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