Win XP Pro Activation ... wtf?

Eye

ok, first time i've encountered this problem so here goes, i've got windows xp pro installed onto 2 hdd's in the same machine, one for my dad who does alot of photo editing and another for myself and mostly games.

Now having just sorted out another issue with a new hdd (thanks to boards ) i then went to install xp onto the new drive so i can reformat my old drive and turn it into storage. still with me? good. now on the xp pro packet it states that it's 1-2cpu's so naturally i think all is well as i'm only using one machine, but low and behold i now cannot activate xp pro on the new drive as it tells me it's already been activated the max no. of times????

yeah sure it has been activated twice, both on the same machine just different hdd's and now it won't activate at all. to me this sounds a bit ridiculous as if this was to happen every time i reformatted the cd will probably be no good to me in about 4-6 months time come my next reformat off all the drives, so what gives?

surely this can't be right, maybe i'm doing something wrong? surely you can't be expected to fork out money for a new xp pro license after 2 reformats?

jessy

MS did this to try to stop pirated copies from working; I think it will be OK if you call MS support. I think "ColmOT [MSFT]" works for Microsoft try PM him.

Cabaal

Sadly its a ring M$ job by sounds of it, too many activations and maybe even hardware changes..
As for 1-2 CPU's it means exactly that, its designed for a system with 1 or 2 CPU's, not two pc's
MS don't want people installing XP on more the one system,
Why two installs two hd's same machine?

Eye

well looks like i'll be ringing M$ so.

cheers

seamus

Shouldn't be an issue. The EULA states that you can only have Multi-user XP on one machine, so you're not breaking that because afaik it doesn't specifiy how many times it can be installed on that one machine.

Cake Fiend

Why are you installing two seperate copies of XP on the one PC? Read up on user account management in XP and do it the proper way, it'll save headaches. Plus, you should probably use your second hard drive to store your swap file to speed things up a bit.

gaui3d0pnbz86o

eye:

this happened me last week! just ring the activation line, the number is listed on screen and its free phone. its all automated just follow the steps. it'll say it cant activate, and transfer you to a call centre. they just ask you what product you are activating and give you a new number. cost of call: free. time: <4minutes

tom

thommcn

The following I found out when I was sorting out a second-hand laptop:

http://labmice.techtarget.com/windowsxp/Install/wpa.htm

What you need to know about WPA
There are a few things that aren't readily apparent in the documentation that you should be aware of:
1. You have 30 days from the time you install XP to activate it. If you don't, you'll be able to boot the PC but won't be able to launch Windows without first calling to activate XP.
2. Microsoft will only authorize a maximum of three activations in the first 30 days that you own the product
3. Microsoft will authorize a maximum of eight activations for a product (Although we've heard unconfirmed reports that this has been raised to 11 activations)
4 If you reach the activation limit, you will be required to purchase another license if you wish to continue using the product
5 Reinstalling Windows XP on the same hardware generates the same product key, so the above doesn't affect you. You can reinstall Windows XP an unlimited number of times on the same hardware.

Capt'n Midnight

Sico wrote:

Why are you installing two seperate copies of XP on the one PC?

eg: one with Service pack 2 and one without....
one as a way of reinstalling the NTBACKUP file you made of the other so as long as you can dual boot you can do a full recovery in about 10 minutes with all your settings.

Note on activation - if you make major hardware changes to the machine you may have to reactivate. this is more likley if you change many components at once and less likely if there is a PCMCIA controller in the system. If you restore a full backup including system state from before the changes it too would have to be activated but there is a good chance that if you put the HW back as was the restored version might be Ok

MrVestek

I'm not one to mention warez or anything but i find that activation cracks are less of a hassle... and before anyone flames me yes i do have the official cds and yes it is illegal but the whole activation thing is pointless anyways. Ya could always do as i did, follow a guide on the net (not gonna tell ya where for obvious reasons) copy a few files from the official cd... modify a few... and burn onto a cdr so it makes it into a corporate version of xp (pro only tho) meaning that when u install XP thinks it's already been activated... alot less hassle tbh.