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Dec 13th, 2003

XP Pro (re)activation question

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This is an area that I am not entirely familiar with, hence the following question.

I have a service customer some of whose problems can be traced to a bootleg Windows XP Pro install. When I apprised her of this, she "did the right thing" and obtained a legal OEM copy of XP Pro.

What I would like to do is an in-place reinstall to pick up the new, legal key and a new activation -- while losing as little of the current install as possible. Can anybody give me some quick pointers? Are there instructions somewhere for doing this?

As always, any help is appreciated.

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xp pro activation in Windows NT / 2000 / XP

TallCool1

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Practically a Posting Shark

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Dec 13th, 2003

Re: XP Pro (re)activation question

i belive there is a tool out there that will let you change the key.

if you do a reinstall you wont be able to keep any installed programs. however you can keep physical files

Zachery

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The Geek Father

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Dec 13th, 2003

Re: XP Pro (re)activation question

Quote originally posted by TallCool1 ...

I have a service customer some of whose problems can be traced to a bootleg Windows XP Pro install.

If the bootleged copy is the root of the problem then why would you want to keep it ,and just change the key and activation . I don't think what you want to do is possiable ,but it might be !

caperjack

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Dec 15th, 2003

Re: XP Pro (re)activation question

Yeah, you can change the key without reinstalling, if that's possible.

feigned

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Posting Whiz

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Dec 15th, 2003

Re: XP Pro (re)activation question

try this it is what i had to do to install the SP1 a while back ,but since formated and didn't reinstall SP1.
http://www.subvers.com/technobabble/html/XP.htm

caperjack

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Mar 31st, 2004

Re: XP Pro (re)activation question

OK....

I have XP installed on a hard drive which has corrupted, if I get a new hard drive, will I be able to re-activate XP on the new drive?

DWard

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Newbie Poster

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Mar 31st, 2004

Re: XP Pro (re)activation question

I can't believe the answers I'm seeing here - they're rather bizarre responses to a simple question!

An 'In-place upgrade' should reset the lot. It'll activate as a new installation. All it does is reinstall Windows over the top of the existing installation, using the codes and keys of the new OEM CD. You even have to install updates again afterwards.

Edit: Yes DWard, you'll be able to re-activate. The worst you'd cop would be the need to reactivate by phone, but I doubt that would happen.

Catweazle

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Grandad

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Mar 31st, 2004

Re: XP Pro (re)activation question

Quote originally posted by TallCool1 ...

This is an area that I am not entirely familiar with, hence the following question.

I have a service customer some of whose problems can be traced to a bootleg Windows XP Pro install. When I apprised her of this, she "did the right thing" and obtained a legal OEM copy of XP Pro.

What I would like to do is an in-place reinstall to pick up the new, legal key and a new activation -- while losing as little of the current install as possible. Can anybody give me some quick pointers? Are there instructions somewhere for doing this?

As always, any help is appreciated.

Might be easier and faster to run sysprep -factory and then reseal the system without generating new SID.
sysprep is in the deploy.cab on the xp cd. Read the included .chm files first before using sysprep

chanto!

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Light Poster

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Mar 31st, 2004

Re: XP Pro (re)activation question

It's not real hard to do an In-place upgrade, and you don't have to sit there watching!

Here's the Microsoft info:

http://support.microsoft.com/default...&Product=winxp

Why get too technical when it's not necessary?

Catweazle

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Grandad

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Mar 31st, 2004

Re: XP Pro (re)activation question

Quote originally posted by TallCool1 ...

This is an area that I am not entirely familiar with, hence the following question.

I have a service customer some of whose problems can be traced to a bootleg Windows XP Pro install. When I apprised her of this, she "did the right thing" and obtained a legal OEM copy of XP Pro.

What I would like to do is an in-place reinstall to pick up the new, legal key and a new activation -- while losing as little of the current install as possible. Can anybody give me some quick pointers? Are there instructions somewhere for doing this?

As always, any help is appreciated.

Actually, you won't have to reinstall anything unless you want to. You can keep the legged version on the machine and simply change the key and then hit the website for all of your updates and patches. This will make your windows version completely legit. However, some people feel morally challenged to this process and want to install the OEM legit copy and erase the legged copy...in that case you'll have to do an inplace upgrade and run through it like catweazle said.

Changing the microsoft key
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;328874

Changing the Key at activation
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;810892

TKS

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Posting Pro in Training

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