XP Activation

[Guest]

I have two pcs and two legal retail disks of XP with different serial
numbers. I have replaced the hard drive on one machine and need to reinstall
and activate XP. Is there a way of telling which of the two retail disks was
used to load the OS on the unchanged machine (and therefore by inference
which is the "free" licence?)

Michael Bradbury

 

[Kerry Brown]

Run the following program on the unchanged pc to see which key it is using.

http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml

 

[needlove]

This program will also give you a partial key:
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=52012

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I have two pcs and two legal retail disks of XP with different serial
numbers. I have replaced the hard drive on one machine and need to
reinstall and activate XP. Is there a way of telling which of the
two retail disks was used to load the OS on the unchanged machine
(and therefore by inference which is the "free" licence?)

It doesn't matter. The product keys are not on the CDs and the CDs are
identical.

The license is on the key, not on the CD.