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"Microsoft Product Activation"

Well, i've been having a bit of trouble activating my (legal) copy of Windows XP, I jabbed in the CDkey that came with the instruction booklet, yet it said that I had "used" this code too many times, and I had to phone up to get some sort of confirmation ID from Microsoft.

Disgruntled by the time consuming factor of this, I grabbed the phone and tapped the freephone number in, concerned that I might have to give away my details. Thankfully I was greeted by an automated woman-speaker thing, and All I had to do was tap in this number that was on the screen into the phone.

She told me it wasn't "verified" and they'd have to put me through to a customer service representative. I was put on hold for roughly 3 seconds, then a nice sounding lady answered, asked me if I was using "Windows XP Home" and I replied with "Yes", and that was it, she put me through to another automation which read out a new confirmation ID for me to tap in, and I was activated.

Now come on, that in my opinion is superb, I got my copy of XP activated without too much stress or hassle, Microsoft made it pretty simple, efficient and extremely clever.

So if anyone has a (legal) copy of XP and is having trouble with the activation stage, don't fret, give them a call, after all, it's free!

Microsoft = Thumbs up.

But you wouldnt have to activate ovet the net, just select the option for activation over the phone, then stick in the code youve written down.

cookie monster wrote:
> AMD_MAN wrote:
> Oh and writing down the numbers for when you need to do it again
> will
> not work as next time windows will not accept it.
>
> But if you have just reformatted your hard drive how does it know
> what code you used the last time?

Microsoft would have saved it to a database, if you try and activate over the net then your pc would query the database.
Well thats what i think.

Activating once is fine, but having to do it again and again it is no wonder people use illegal methods for creating new keys.

AMD_MAN wrote:
> Oh and writing down the numbers for when you need to do it again will
> not work as next time windows will not accept it.

But if you have just reformatted your hard drive how does it know what code you used the last time?

As i re-install so often due to upgrades and have to phone microsoft to activate my copy of win xp pro every time then it starts to get annoying as i reckon they should reset the amount of times you are allowed to activate over the net, i get impatiaint while listening and typing the numbers they come up with and the automated one is new before i had to speak to a person who did it, The file that you are supposed to is called WPA.DBL and i have seen this work but also it has not worked a couple of times, You are only really allowed to change the major componants on your system if you have a retail copy of windows xp, apparently if you have an OEM copy you are not allowed to change any of the major componants that would make the computer a differant machine.

Oh and writing down the numbers for when you need to do it again will not work as next time windows will not accept it.

Colin

yeah i used to format my comp a lot, before i got xp, it makes a huge difference to performance on pre XP machines

I think re-installing is great!

Usually after about 6 months, windows starts to get slow and bogged down, so backing up all my files (i.e putting them onto my spare partition) and reformatting always does the job.

JamesD wrote:
> This allows you to 'Activate' your copy of XP without
> phoning up, this only works if no Hardware has been added since
> original activiation.

This is the only reason you'd ever have to phone up. If no hardware is changed, the activation wizard can activate your copy of XP automagically.

While having to phone someone up to activate a software product is a pain in the neck, Microsoft make it about as painless as it could possibly be. So kudos to them.

gamezfreak wrote:
> Yeah, this is probably my 5th re-install I think since XP came out.

Very_Metal wrote:
> ...and yet you still give Micro$oft a thumbs-up?? ;)


:^D

If you format your hardrive and want to reinstall XP, then there is a file that you can copy to floppy and copy back to your HD after installing XP. This allows you to 'Activate' your copy of XP without phoning up, this only works if no Hardware has been added since original activiation.
Im pretty sure this works, i read it in a magazine about a year ago.

I wrote the activation code down so that i code use it again.