B
Beemer Biker
We have at our home, 10 computers all licensed for XP Pro or home; 4 kids in
college + wife + myself all using using XP system. 7 desktops + 3 notebooks
(wife has electronic tax filing business). In additon, I got 2 "spare"
licenses, one from a defective thinkpad not worth fixing, the other still
sealed, got from college bookstore for $10.
My beef is that it is getting harder and harder to re-activate any of the
old ones. Since I bought our first copies of XP (5 oem bought with
qualifying hardware: cpu & motherboards in 2000?) I or my kids have had to
re-activate at least 12 - 15 times over the phone. Main problem was
capacitors on motherboards going out and cheaper to replace mombo+cpu then
repair. Then video boards being upgraded, more memory, dvd burners instead
of cd burners, etc. All these seemed to trigger re-activation eventually.
I just re-activated a product key that was from a defective dell 8300. The
mombo was replaced long ago. I replaced the dvd burner with one of those
new lightscribe and that triggered the activation. When it would not
reactivate over the internet, I tried the serial number from the broken
thinkpad. Then, thinking I may have the wrong serial number, tried another
from my "list" before I called. The person I talked to already knew that I
had tried another two serial numbers an hour earlier before I called. She
had a record of me or someone else (my kids) using those serial numbers.
O.K. I did get it activated although I had to give the same serial # twice
over the phone and explain that I wasnt a criminal with stolen serial#'s.
After activating I googled around and got that program xpinfo.exe that
checks activation codes. All devices that I had on this newly activated
system were either checked or grayed out. The cpu# was grayed out since AMD
has no serial in the cpu. I didnt have a scsi so it was grayed out. The
next day I got in my Promise TX SATA/PATA controller and moved the CDRW to
that PATA connector. I re-ran that xpinfo.exe and noticed that the scsi
controller was now bold and checked. I assume microsoft added that device
to its windows activation code. However, the CDRW that I moved from slave
on primary ide to master on PATA promise was now unchecked. That is not
right. Moving the same CDRW from one controller to another should not count
against me for a windows activation. I verified this by moving the CDRW
back to slave and xpinfo showed a check in the cdrom box.
Microsoft is not properly checking CD device identifiers and moving the same
CD/DVD to another controller counts against you. It should not since it is
the same cdrom.
Microsoft should not be recording how many attempts I made trying to
re-activate windows. That is not right IMHO. I dont know how many times I
have enter an 8 before I relized it was a B or a G instead of a 6 and
vice-versa. It would appear that microsoft is recording this stuff????
my 2c, and I feel a lot better.
Thanks Bill Gates, for letting my kids get $10 copies of XP and Office at
the college bookstore here. How about other kids go to schools that you
didnt sign a contract like that with?
--
=======================================================================
Beemer Biker (e-mail address removed)
http://ResearchRiders.org Ask about my 99'R1100RT
http://TipsForTheComputingImpaired.com
=======================================================================
college + wife + myself all using using XP system. 7 desktops + 3 notebooks
(wife has electronic tax filing business). In additon, I got 2 "spare"
licenses, one from a defective thinkpad not worth fixing, the other still
sealed, got from college bookstore for $10.
My beef is that it is getting harder and harder to re-activate any of the
old ones. Since I bought our first copies of XP (5 oem bought with
qualifying hardware: cpu & motherboards in 2000?) I or my kids have had to
re-activate at least 12 - 15 times over the phone. Main problem was
capacitors on motherboards going out and cheaper to replace mombo+cpu then
repair. Then video boards being upgraded, more memory, dvd burners instead
of cd burners, etc. All these seemed to trigger re-activation eventually.
I just re-activated a product key that was from a defective dell 8300. The
mombo was replaced long ago. I replaced the dvd burner with one of those
new lightscribe and that triggered the activation. When it would not
reactivate over the internet, I tried the serial number from the broken
thinkpad. Then, thinking I may have the wrong serial number, tried another
from my "list" before I called. The person I talked to already knew that I
had tried another two serial numbers an hour earlier before I called. She
had a record of me or someone else (my kids) using those serial numbers.
O.K. I did get it activated although I had to give the same serial # twice
over the phone and explain that I wasnt a criminal with stolen serial#'s.
After activating I googled around and got that program xpinfo.exe that
checks activation codes. All devices that I had on this newly activated
system were either checked or grayed out. The cpu# was grayed out since AMD
has no serial in the cpu. I didnt have a scsi so it was grayed out. The
next day I got in my Promise TX SATA/PATA controller and moved the CDRW to
that PATA connector. I re-ran that xpinfo.exe and noticed that the scsi
controller was now bold and checked. I assume microsoft added that device
to its windows activation code. However, the CDRW that I moved from slave
on primary ide to master on PATA promise was now unchecked. That is not
right. Moving the same CDRW from one controller to another should not count
against me for a windows activation. I verified this by moving the CDRW
back to slave and xpinfo showed a check in the cdrom box.
Microsoft is not properly checking CD device identifiers and moving the same
CD/DVD to another controller counts against you. It should not since it is
the same cdrom.
Microsoft should not be recording how many attempts I made trying to
re-activate windows. That is not right IMHO. I dont know how many times I
have enter an 8 before I relized it was a B or a G instead of a 6 and
vice-versa. It would appear that microsoft is recording this stuff????
my 2c, and I feel a lot better.
Thanks Bill Gates, for letting my kids get $10 copies of XP and Office at
the college bookstore here. How about other kids go to schools that you
didnt sign a contract like that with?
--
=======================================================================
Beemer Biker (e-mail address removed)
http://ResearchRiders.org Ask about my 99'R1100RT
http://TipsForTheComputingImpaired.com
=======================================================================
