What Happened

[bill]

I have an old Toshiba Laptop that had no XP disk - only a system
restore. Since had been used by a youngster there were a lot of
programs that should have never been installed.

I went to CompUSA and bought a XP Home (upgrade), booted from
the CD, reformated the drive and installed the new OS. I then went
to internet activation and got 'This product has exceeded the maximum
installations. Call and get a new product code etc....

Well I did call and got no explaination of why the brand new software
was a invalid product code, but the guy gave me a new series of
numbers to key in and the activation was accepted. I offered to go
back to CompUSA and get another copy - but was told that was not
necessary.

The laptop is two years old and other than Windows Update has never
had anything done to it.

What is going on?

Bill
Atlanta

 

[V Green]

I have an old Toshiba Laptop that had no XP disk - only a system
restore. Since had been used by a youngster there were a lot of
programs that should have never been installed.

I went to CompUSA and bought a XP Home (upgrade), booted from
the CD, reformated the drive and installed the new OS. I then went
to internet activation and got 'This product has exceeded the maximum
installations. Call and get a new product code etc....

Well I did call and got no explaination of why the brand new software
was a invalid product code, but the guy gave me a new series of
numbers to key in and the activation was accepted. I offered to go
back to CompUSA and get another copy - but was told that was not
necessary.

The laptop is two years old and other than Windows Update has never
had anything done to it.

What is going on?

Bill
Atlanta

Laptops often have a "hidden" partition/file on their HD's that
allow users to make a one-time choice of various options when
starting up for the first time.

Unless you delete ALL partitions and do a complete format
(NOT a quick format), stuff may still reside there, and get found.

This is how it worked with my Sharp, which allowed you to
select either W2K or XP when you initially powered it up, and
will NOT allow you to start over with whatever choice you did
not make initially.

Just a guess here...perhaps other will have more details on exactly
how this works.

 

[kurttrail]

I have an old Toshiba Laptop that had no XP disk - only a system
restore. Since had been used by a youngster there were a lot of
programs that should have never been installed.

I went to CompUSA and bought a XP Home (upgrade), booted from
the CD, reformated the drive and installed the new OS. I then went
to internet activation and got 'This product has exceeded the maximum
installations. Call and get a new product code etc....

Well I did call and got no explaination of why the brand new software
was a invalid product code, but the guy gave me a new series of
numbers to key in and the activation was accepted. I offered to go
back to CompUSA and get another copy - but was told that was not
necessary.

The laptop is two years old and other than Windows Update has never
had anything done to it.

What is going on?

Bill
Atlanta

Someone keygenned you Product Key or just another example of how screwy
Product Activation really is.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com/mscommunity
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei"

 

[Jim]

I have an old Toshiba Laptop that had no XP disk - only a system
restore. Since had been used by a youngster there were a lot of
programs that should have never been installed.

I went to CompUSA and bought a XP Home (upgrade), booted from
the CD, reformated the drive and installed the new OS. I then went
to internet activation and got 'This product has exceeded the maximum
installations. Call and get a new product code etc....

Well I did call and got no explaination of why the brand new software
was a invalid product code, but the guy gave me a new series of
numbers to key in and the activation was accepted. I offered to go
back to CompUSA and get another copy - but was told that was not
necessary.

The laptop is two years old and other than Windows Update has never
had anything done to it.

What is going on?

Bill
Atlanta

It had an OEM version of XP. Those OEM people who do not furnish a CD are
supposed to put the required stuff in a separate partition. I'll bet that
you didn't keep the manual around hence you don't have instructions on how
to use the partition.

Now, the upgrade version of XP that you bought can't upgrade an OEM version
for the reason that you found. MS helped you by sending a workable product
code.

When I get my next computer, I am going to build it myself just to get
around all these OEM version problems.
Jim

 

[Bill]

It had an OEM version of XP. Those OEM people who do not furnish a CD are
supposed to put the required stuff in a separate partition. I'll bet that
you didn't keep the manual around hence you don't have instructions on how
to use the partition.

Now, the upgrade version of XP that you bought can't upgrade an OEM version
for the reason that you found. MS helped you by sending a workable product
code.

When I get my next computer, I am going to build it myself just to get
around all these OEM version problems.
Jim

I didn't see any 'extra partitions' but didn't use partition magic
either. The machine had a 'restore disk' but it was only going to
put it back to as-new. I guess the MS error was a bogus answer and I
really did run into the OEM stuff. The machine works fine now, and
thanks for the answers!

Bill

 

[Harry Monster]

When I get my next computer, I am going to build it myself just to get
around all these OEM version problems.

That's what I've done with my present system. And I quit using upgrades
years ago, even with machines I didn't build myself. When I went from
Windows 98/2 to ME, (on the same system) I re-formatted the C drive and
installed a full-bore version. No chance that some errant program or
utility from 98/2 is going to interfere with the new OS.

And when I assembled the present computer, I bought a full-bore version
of XP and installed that. The only thing that was moved from the old
computer was the D drive (2nd hard drive) with its SuSE 9.1 Linux
system. That boots from a floppy.

 

[ms]

That's what I've done with my present system. And I quit using upgrades
years ago, even with machines I didn't build myself. When I went from
Windows 98/2 to ME, (on the same system) I re-formatted the C drive and
installed a full-bore version. No chance that some errant program or
utility from 98/2 is going to interfere with the new OS.

And when I assembled the present computer, I bought a full-bore version of
XP and installed that.

You can do new installations with upgrade versions. You usually just need an
older full version of windows for verification.

For instance I got the XP pro Academic Upgrade Edition, all I needed was my
Win95 (or later) CD during the install to verify I qualified for the
upgrade.

Functionally the same as the full retail version of XP Pro and quite a bit
cheaper.

I would never install a later OS over an older version, just for my own
peace of mind, and for the most part it doesn't take that long.