A very senior moment...

[Adrian C]

Nope. It's OEM and is licensed for use on the machine it's sold with. Once that machine dies, Microsoft says the right to use it has also died

- and you have made an agreement with them (the EULA) that says you will comply with this.

There is a dodgy loop hole if you can convince them that the motherboard died and was unreplacable with like, but that involves speaking to MS product activation staff who have heard it all before...

However, the 'full' price retail package is different, in that you _can_ install it and activate on your upgrades.

With neither, you get the right to install the operating software on another machine for use simultaneously. You have to buy another copy. The "legitimate licence" Adrian was refering to.

Just to complicate things further, looks like your OEM disc has been knobled by whoever left the 'XP repair' utility off. In my mind that is not even a complete OEM disc, and you may have grounds to argue that one with the supplier.

Anyway, this isn't helping your current situation. A proper OEM disc (obtained from anywhere ) that matches your current license key and service pack level (though not exactly essential, useful) should sort you out until it starts wobbling about reactivation.

[Jim]

It's fairly easy in my experience to convince them to authorise a legitimate reinstall.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

I've never signed any such agreement.

I've already done this with success. And installed upgrades afterwards.

All I have to do is spend some time loading in all the apps I use to the basic XP installation on the second machine. I was just hoping to save some time.

I can quite understand MS or whoever trying their best to prevent pirating. In this case I just want it on both machines which are only used by me. They're not losing out on any sales.

[Jeff Gaines]

Sorry, can you say that again? If you install XP on 2 machines using the same key MSFT have lost 1 sale.

[Adrian C]

It's mainly called pressing the F8 key.

After that point the marriage has been consummated and in the eyes of Microsoft lawyers ye are either (1) f'd, or (2) accepting to pay huge legal fees in the vain hope of not getting f'd.

With this CD and license key sticker? How many activations?

Have a look at the setupp.ini file in the i386 directory on your XP CD and discover what your "pid" says about the version you have. Details on the foot of ...

OK, you've just denied one starving Microsoft technician one third of his lunch ...

[John Rumm]

It sounds lke it ought to be a generic OEM install CD. They should do a repair install just fine (done one many times). To be fair I have never met a CD that wiped a working system on a reinstall other than manufacturer specific "recovery" CD.

Drop me a line if you want - I can probably find a CD for you to try.

[John Rumm]

To be fair, it often does not need to go as far as speaking to a rep - usually a reactivation via touch tone fone will fix it on a motherboard upgrade - especially if the original has been activated for some time.

If you do get as far as speaking to a rep, they have been in my experience more than willing to reactivate if you tell them you have just repaired the machine.

You can also take it with you to a new machine if its removed from the previous.

While true, its a bit of a moot point - the CDs usually know nothing of the actual key or COA that is being used, so long as it passes the algorithmic validation during install.

So owning two licenses, but installing the first and then cloning it, would be a legitimate way to proceed. (and the way most corporates will roll out multiple systems on a "site" license.

[geoff]

In message , John Rumm writes

Ploughman killed my PC by proxy

It died last night from dodgy caps

Bought a new mbd today and it decided I needed to reactivate windows

... which I did over the internet - quite straightforward and painless

[John Rumm]

Yup, often works. The gotcha is when it insists that it wants to reactivate *now" before you can go any further, and the system does not recognise your network card. Hence you can't activate on line, and yet it won't let you do anything useful to load drivers so that you could! (sometimes you get three days to activate - but the logic for which it chooses does not seem consistent)

[Mark]

Even better to get a copy of XP that does not need activation.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

^^^^^^^^^ Ahem. ;-)

How did you know Windows needed reactivating? Does it give a warning?

FWIW, I gave up with trying to use a cloned disc from the other machine and did a clean install. And nowhere did it ask for me to enter an 'administrative' password.

[Andy Burns]

Did it ask you for another username (and password)?

if you open a "DOS" window (start, run, cmd.exe)

then type "set u" into it, what's your username?

[Dave Plowman (News)]

User name - but the password is optional. And of course I tried all my passwords when attempting the repair. I don't have that many.

The one I entered. The first thing I tried when asked by the repair consul.

[Andy Burns]

Is this XP home, or XP Pro? Which logon screen have you got enabled? The "friendly" one where you pick your name and picture from a list, or the one where you type in your username?

If the latter you should be able to log in as administrator and the same password as for your "dave" (or whatever it's called) account, but the first (or only) user you've created will have admin rights anyway. worth checking now for the *next* time you need to get into repair mode.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

Home.

Type in your user name.

Didn't enter a password, though. Just a name. Wouldn't have bothered with that but it insisted.

[geoff]

That happened to me a couple of years ago - managed to sort ot by an automated phone call

This time I first tried to use the phone number so I didn't get the activation required notice coming up all the way through the driver installation, but the string of numbers that I had to type into the phone just weren't there (type in the code numbers below ... what 'kin code numbers)

[geoff]

What copy would that be then ?

I wanted to maintain my installation and settings, not do a complete install

[geoff]

In message , "Dave Plowman (News)" writes

Big FO box comes up every time you reboot asking you if you want to re-activate now and reminding you that you have three days to reactivate

[John Rumm]

Ones on a hacked corporate key...

(lots of the keys are blacklisted by MS though now)

[geoff]

I was waiting for him to say that