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You Have 27 Days To Activate Windows.

mark!

mark!

macrumors 65816
Original poster
Feb 4, 2006
1,370
1
America
Well, I installed XP on my MacBook Pro and had to send it for repair, now they wiped my harddrive (YES I backed up, but I couldn't back up the windows partition). I reinstalled it and now when I try to ''activate'' Windows (does this mean it will stop getting viruses...? :p ) it is like ZOMG this is INVAVLID RAWR! I guess I activated it last time....soooooo I don't know what to do. I called them on the thingy...thing...that they say to call in the pop up window but I was on hold for like....20 minutes so I gave up.

Is there a work around?
 
Sooo I paid money to get XP & Activated to shut the stupid thing up, sent my faulty machine to Apple, they wipe my harddrive, & now I just wasted that much money to have XP for 1 month?? :mad:
 
markkk! said:
Sooo I paid money to get XP & Activated to shut the stupid thing up, sent my faulty machine to Apple, they wipe my harddrive, & now I just wasted that much money to have XP for 1 month?? :mad:
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No, you can reactivate your copy of Windows. You may need to call them and explain that your logic board was bad and it was replaced since they use some type of hardware MAC address for the activation and that most likley changed now. It may be a 15 min hold time but you need to do it and you wont have any problems.
 
i'll try again. 'tis like the 3rd time & they put you on hold for a million years.
 
Its this very thing that drove me to d/l a Pro version of Xp. Yes, I did buy a home copy way back when it was released (and I can verify that if you don't believe me). I installed it on my machine.

Then I rebuilt the computer about a month later, re-installed and activated with no problems. I reformatted some after that for some reason, can't remember why, and at that point was prompted to call. I was a bit po'ed but I did. I was then told ANY time from that time forward I wanted to activate I needed to call.

I'm a bit fuzzy on this since its been so long ago, but after I activated it over the phone, it seems I had a stick of ram go bad. So I had that replaced by crucial and upon installing that stick I was AGAIN prompted to call and activate. That was enough to send me over the edge. Like I said, I can't remember exactly if it was the ram (seems like it was) or I changed video card or something, something very minor, but afterwards I was suppose to call and basically tell them what I did so I could continue to use the copy that I HAD BOUGHT!

This copy of XP was never installed on another computer. At the time it was the only pc in the house. But all the activating BS really left a bad taste in my mouth. Just because I changed my hardware around I was being treated like a kindergartner and had to ask permission to use something I paid for.
 
just a phone call will fix it.
i had to do the same thing when my hard drive failed.
it took an astounding 35 minutes to get a person and they grilled me on what i was doing.
how hard is it to understand: my hard drive died. i got a new one. i reninstalled windows and have to activate it again???
 
This is one of my main gripes with XP and the main reason that I have never upgraded. I refuse to play these shenanigans. Win2k is just fine for anything that I need to do with Windows, and is probably the last version of Windows I will ever buy.
 
princealfie said:
Me too. I like to say I prefer w2k over xp for the activation shebang I had to go through. I really hated it so very much.
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Plus the fact that Win2k is fast and XP is a performance dog (at least the GUI).
 
You will have to call. I had to do this in the past as well. I have al illegal copy from IU that does not require activation and I use that just for the fact my legal copy is too much of a hassle.

QuarkXPress is terrible about this too. I have had to call the Quark people 3 times in the last month to activate software that was being installed on a different system after we did some upgrading in the office. So annoying!
 
it's not the same with corporate licenses correct? i've swapped hardware many times and haven't had the problem.
 
CNU182 said:
it's not the same with corporate licenses correct? i've swapped hardware many times and haven't had the problem.
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Most corporate version to not require activation.

The way this works is when XP is installed it creates a hardware ID this number. This number is created by these parts: Serial number of system volume; NIC MAC address; CDROM; graphics adapter; CPU; hard drive; SCSI adapter; IDE controller; processor model; RAM size. There's also a check to see if the hardware is dockable or not. Then its transmits this long number during activation to MS. Which transmits back at confirmation code if it has not been activated before(that license key) If its has been activated before MS servers will compare the codes to see if they are identical, if they are slightly different it will be ok with it and confirm the activation. If they are very different it will decline activation. And every so often the activation program checks the computer to make sure it lines up with the machine ID. If it is slightly different it transmits the new machine ID to the servers. If it is very different it will require activation again. To get it to activate again you just phone them up tell them what you changed, then they give you the story of how they don't like doing this but will do it this once.(don't have them do it to many times or they won't do it) So thats how activation works. :) Man am I glad we use a cooperate license at work.:D
 
trainguy77 said:
Most corporate version to not require activation.

The way this works is when XP is installed it creates a hardware ID this number. This number is created by these parts: Serial number of system volume; NIC MAC address; CDROM; graphics adapter; CPU; hard drive; SCSI adapter; IDE controller; processor model; RAM size. There's also a check to see if the hardware is dockable or not. Then its transmits this long number during activation to MS. Which transmits back at confirmation code if it has not been activated before(that license key) If its has been activated before MS servers will compare the codes to see if they are identical, if they are slightly different it will be ok with it and confirm the activation. If they are very different it will decline activation. And every so often the activation program checks the computer to make sure it lines up with the machine ID. If it is slightly different it transmits the new machine ID to the servers. If it is very different it will require activation again. To get it to activate again you just phone them up tell them what you changed, then they give you the story of how they don't like doing this but will do it this once.(don't have them do it to many times or they won't do it) So thats how activation works. :) Man am I glad we use a cooperate license at work.:D
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jesus, me too
 
trainguy77 said:
To get it to activate again you just phone them up tell them what you changed, then they give you the story of how they don't like doing this but will do it this once.(don't have them do it to many times or they won't do it) So thats how activation works. :) Man am I glad we use a cooperate license at work.:D
Click to expand...

Why don't they like doing it? If you own a full retail copy, you are entitled to migrate it to a different machine if you wish, no?
 
Loge said:
Why don't they like doing it? If you own a full retail copy, you are entitled to migrate it to a different machine if you wish, no?
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Because if they were like sure no problem! Then people would install it on more home computers and just make sure they don't change any hardware so they don't contact MS servers again. Yes you could do this 2 or 3 times. (If that, I don't know how many times they will do it, I have anywhere from only 1 once a year to 5 or 6 times a year.) However its more then anything a deterrent for pirates. However it was cracked awhile ago anyway so its kind of a waste now.:eek:
 
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