XP registration question

A friend of mine wants to replace his computer by a new machine and he asked me if he can reuse his windows XP home edition he has on CD.

Installation won't be a problem, but then after 3o days or so Windows want a registration number and check if this CD is already used and therefor probably refuse to return a SN in certain cases.

I guess it's possible/legal somehow, could somebody tell me how this procedure works? thanks a lot.

Each key basically has a set number of times it can be registered, after it hits that point, you'll have to phone in to get a new one free of charge iirc.

Genexi is right, you can get a new key but you need to phone for it. I guess they disable your old key at the same time.

Thanks. And where do I get the phone number? He already had to phone for the first number. I also know you can get two numbers with a home edition. Is that process diffrent from the one of a standard registration using the phone? (They got this automatized system with a female voice, AFAIR)

XP requires registration? Never knew that.

Are you serious? I never know that ENAY +_+ . Yes, the cheap versions of XP require a registration that should prevent pirats from spreading copies of XP all over the globe.

As far as I know the Professional version allows unlimited numbers of installations - that would render the mentioned attemps useless.

It's not an OEM Windows XP, is it? If so, it's only valid for the machine it was purchased with and may not be transferred. Otherwise, it's fine.

No, it's a home edition on a CD, bought seperately.

Thanks people.

My XP came with my PC. Dunno what version it is.

JFK,

I have installed my old PC about four times in its four years, each time I just phone the XP number through and they give a number. It is very simple - don't be concerned.

But be aware of something, I dont know if this was Windows or not, but I suspect it was.

I had a load of data on my other partitioned hard drive. When I tried to re-install Windows, I had just done a registry back up - so I thought I would use that to get WIndows XP back to where it should be with my installed applications and data.

However because I decided not to register it and to load the old registry (same day same pc csame hard drive config.), my drive spent 10-20 mins making changes to the files on the drive and many things seemed to become corrupt.

I eventually backtracked and registered XP over the telephone, guess what ? The drive went off whirring again for 12 mins and all my data was back as normal!

Don't ask me if it was Windows XP or not.

IPete2.

I just bought a fresh copy of XP - interestingly, the installation of SP2 is not a user option - my version came on one CD and installs SP2 without asking or even mentioning it was installing SP2 on your machine.

Better an up-to-date WinXP installation then an older one puki...
(nothing like getting msblast.exe on a non-SP2 install the second you connect to the net you forgot to disconnect when installing firewall/AntiVir...)

>>(nothing like getting msblast.exe on a non-SP2 install the second you connect to the net you forgot to disconnect when installing firewall/AntiVir...)<<

Know that, been there. It's good to show everyone you're not paranoid. Antivirus, firewall and XpAntiSpy should be ready on a CD.

me too, it's really bad getting msblast immediately on connection to the net. I reinstalled a client's laptop once with their XP original CD (not SP2) and though, OK I'll connect to the net to upgrade it and got msblast immediately! I had to kill that and protect it before installing SP2.

On the upside, least its easy as freaking hell to stop/remove, unlike other spyware/virii I've had to deal with in the past...
(nothing like paying "rent" in the form of fixing your family's PC cause they dont know how to not download stuff)

Technically, it requires *activation*, not registration.... You can skip the registration part, and you don't need to supply any personal information if you choose not to. Only the corporate edition (which often gets deployed from mirrored drives in large organizations) doesn't require activation.

Large OEM installs (dell, hp, ibm, etc.) tend to be pre-activated in factory.

Still use w2k, love it, never fancied the xp upgrade:D

Oh yeah I remember that registration bit now I just disabled that bit. XP is the biggest spyware I know of, I knew upon first connection that XP was gonna open me up to the world for M$ rapage. So I tempted everything with Zonealarm and once XP tried to connect to places I'd block it and then find the files trying to connect and replace them forever with 1k text files of the same names.
I've probably corrupted XP in some way but I don't care since it's still working fine. (As fine as you can get from a shit OS though)

XP hasn't hasn't uttered a word since, I don't know if I'm even registered to use it, but I quite easily just don't care. I'm in control now BEE-OTCH! Gyahaha!

I couldn't give a stuff about the activation malarkey. When M$ start supplying manuals with their software, they might get my custom.

Amigas came with a manual that told you how to use every aspect of the GUI and (later models) how to write Arexx scripts (very useful!).

What manual comes with Windows? What manual comes with Visual C++ 6 (I know it's old, but I bought it ages ago)?

I thought that creating a manual went hand-in-hand with software development?

*double post*

vinylpusher - My old computer (very old computer) had two manuals - one for MSDOS 3.21 and one for GW-BASIC which had the full list of commands, ANSI escape sequences and all sorts of stuff. Since Win95 it seems that the manuals, if they can be called that, are totally useless filler. As a kid the old Gw-Basic manual was good bed time reading. Can't say the same about these things today

I think they put said 'useless filler' in manuals now so the user doesn't feel stupid when reading it.

I remember my CPC464 coming with a big rainbow coloured manual. Which happened to contain all the commands of Amstrad basic and Assembler including a whole load of other useful stuff.

Probably my all time favorite book as a child, and it was just the free book with the computer!

So yeah, I've looked at my Win98 instruction manual. It was clear put together my drunken monkeys.

Any decent HP calculator from the late 70's - early 80's came with a manual the size of a large brick. Some models had manuals going into hundreds of pages. And they were only calculators...

Good old times WERE BETTER, at least when it comes to manuals.

Barney

If I'd gotten the assembler books for my Vic-20 and C64, things would probably have turned out an awfult lot different for me.

Alas.

I've never needed a win manual... Dos, yes, but only to looks up commands since you can't just look about to find stuff.

the reason win doesn't ship with a manual anymore is they just ended up taking up space on a shelf for 99.9% of the win users. Or in the trash.... why kill all those trees, so they moved it all online and saved countless millions and lots of happy trees.

...and instead burn any amount of fossil fuels from the amount of electricity involved in keeping their server(s) running and from people using home computers to access said server. Not forgetting the energy used by the communication infrastructure in place to facilitate the whole thing.

Why not a $1.99 postage and packaging sum to obtain your free Windows manual?

Sure, 99% of people might not need the manual. I don't need one, most of the people on this forum don't need one. Wouldn't it be useful though, to know every command, including the powertools on the XP disc and how they are used? What about the finer points of codepages (DOS related, but applicable to certain Windows functions)? There are any number of intricate parts to Windows which most of us (me included) haven't the faintest idea about. When I had my Amiga, I knew exactly what each and every file was for and what each commandline program did.

How many people know how to create an interactive batch script, or why you would even use one in today's modern environment? How many of us know how to relocate 'My Documents' to a different partition?

It would be quite satisfying to become professional in the use of XP professional ;) currently, to do so requires quite an outlay on training courses. Lots of them.

Office 2003 is definately a suite of applications requiring a manual. Online help is all well and good, but it is bloody frustrating not to be able to browse an offline resource. Of course, there are books available, but which one do you go for? Microsoft's own are criticised and there are so many 3rd party books that it is difficult to know which one to buy.

I could go on, but I'm sure I'd be ignored ;P

It's called F1. Seriously.

That's not entirely true...

I had an OEM copy of windows XP that came with my shitty laptop from Tiny!

When my laptop died after 8 months of use, and Tiny went under (Only to come back as Tiny.com, then go under again), it was then that I decided to build my own...

Anyway, I used a mates copy of XP to install on my freshly built computer, and used my own key to to register it!

Well, I rang them up (I used all my online registrations), and explained that the laptop I bought was rubbish and dead, and I had no interest in buying a fresh copy of XP, because in my eyes, I'd already bought it once...

...Though and behold, they agreed with me, and let me continue using the OEM key on my new machine! :)

Which I still have to this day... Even though I eventually went out and bought XP Pro for IIS (Bloody .NET) :D

Give 'em a ring... Their very, very nice people really! :P

Dabz

How do you find out in XP what your OEM key is? In WIn98 you can find it easily in the system tab, but in XP I have no idea where it is.

The OEM XP key is usually on a sticker on the back or side of the case. If you don't have it there, you could try something like this: http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml

but I've never tried it, so I would suggest that you scan it thoroughly for virii and spyware.

Pert: I've used the magic jelly bean util, works fine, no problems.

Kanati: I can't press F1 whilst I'm on the train in the morning (no laptop), which is the time of day I usually put aside for reading techy stuff.