Activate Windows

[DaveBC 0]

I activated windows immediately upon installing. But now i get message on my taskbar counting down days left to activate. So I click the little set of keys and up comes a blank screen and nothing loads, so I wait still nothing loads in the window. So I close it. This is while i'm connected to the internet of course. After a while it does it again.. and again now it is 12 days left and I worry if my OS will stop working after it reaches 0.

 

Any Ideas what to to?

 

thanx

 

DaveBC

 

System Specs:

 

WinXP Home Upgrade from Win98SE

Athlon Slot A 850mhz

VIA KX 133, w/VIA 4in1437v(a), w/IDE_MPD3014, w/VAGP410

BIOS: American Megatrends Inc. 062710 11/20/00

256 mb Kingmax PC133 SDRAM Cas2 Clk2

Maxtor Diamond Max 30gig ATA66 7200rpm

Creative 52x CDrom

Creative SBLive Xgamer 5.1 w/XP Driver Update

Conexant 56k v.90 Flex modem (avg connect 45.2k to 48k)

Hercules GeForce 2 GTS/Pro 64 mb DDR w/nvidia ref driver XP21.83 With Quadro 2 driver

patch(Infinite loop fix) AGP 4x w/fastwrites enabled, 128 mb apature

DX 8.1

MS Sidewinder Precision Pro

Altec Lansing 5 Speaker Surround

KDS Visual Sensations 19 Monitor Desktop 1024x768x32 @ 70Hz

[ejsmith 0]

Sounds like a bad glitch. I'd backup data before the counter hits 1, much less 0.

 

There might be a registry entry that you can change (say, '1' to '0') that will make it an 'unregistered' computer. You might give msft a call this time, instead of using the modem.

 

There's always *something*.

[BladeRunner 0]

What you have to remember is that the OS will never totally stop working.

Once the counter hits 0 days left it will just boot to a prompt asking you to either go on-line to activate or to call MS and enter the code they give you.

Once you hit 0 it should be prompting you to log on to your ISP and activate, worst case you'll be on the phone for 2 mins (Done a practice call, it really is only 2 mins) to get a code.

[Palos 0]

I didn't have any problems activating my XP Home over the Internet. But I have a question though, actually two:

 

1. Is there a problem if I decide to wipe out my installation and re-install from scratch a couple of times? Does that hinder or is it noticed by the activation process?

 

2. Can I install the same copy of Windows on another computer, and activate it thru the phone (no internet connection)? Does the MS policy allow that? I own the second PC, it's in my house, not anywhere else?

[BladeRunner 0]

1. If you are re-installing your OS lots of times before the 30day activation limit then it wont matter, you'll never get around to activating.

If you wipe and re-install after you have activated and you do so onto the same hardware, then the on-line activation wont bat an eyelid when you re-activate.

However, I have Win2k installations that have been running for 18 months, gone are the days when you needed to wipe & reinstall ever few months (Win9x).

 

2. No, one license, one PC.

It's been that way with MS licenses for quite a while now, in fact for OS's it's always been that way.

More than one PC MS sell "Home License" kits.