Cannot register windows xp home

Search related threads. Remove From My Forums. Asked by:. Archived Forums. Use this forum to discuss topics about deployment for versions of SharePoint prior to Sign in to vote. I would appreciate the help. Thursday, March 1, PM. Bushey 0. Click "Apply" and reboot the PC. This How-to is intended to assist in recovering a PC from a faulty repair install. I don't condone piracy, but I also don't believe in locking a user from their data with faulty control mechanisms.

I was so hopeful, because this post added the permissions steps, but when I do as described, the login after saying "yes" to activation just shows the wallpaper forever. When I logged-on this next time, the expected Windows Activation screen greeted me and I was able to successfully activate! I used this method, and still get the wallpaper screen forever. I am working to recover an old computer which has had it's ethernet controller fail, as well as the internal wi-fi.

I have attached a USB wi-fi adapter, and run the installation software in safemode. When I reboot, I still get the "This copy of Windows must be activated with Microsoft before you can log on. Do you want to activate Windows now? Thanks, needed this today. It was getting critical. A new install would have taken days because of the support from a 3rd party vendor. It was a life saver!!!!

God bless you, hope you'll not stop helping people!.. This just saved my life! Should have looked here first. Home Windows General Windows How-tos. General Windows. Last Updated: Jun 04, 2 Minute Read. Reply Facebook Twitter Reddit LinkedIn. Juan Castano. Main Areas of Contribution:. Track Progress. Earn Credits. Step 2: Run Explorer from the Command prompt to start Windows. I wonder if there is a link there.

Got into XP wireless started working and figured might as well do this now, so an internet search for the procedures tuned up two quick ways, Start — All Programs — Accessories -System Tools then click activate The problem is there was no icon for activate, so back to the Internet and came up with right click My Computer and click on activate, again no option to activate.

It goes like this so for other readers to know. To have the machine ID. You should have a driver installed on a specific device specially the NIC. There is also a command to extend the 30 days grace period that you need to type in in safemode. My situation also a bit bizarre! I found an XP Pro disk and did a recovery using that — worked fine until final reboot and, guess what. Just gonna try the above suggestions. They have you over a barrel and it should be illegal for them not to supply the wherewithal to fix the problem yourself — tantamount to blackmail!!

Thanks for the advice. Any suggestions anyone?? Yep got this several times during the last 10 years or so Fixed like Leo said. Hi, Leo, newbie here. I just read your article regarding Windows XP frustrating activation. Thank you! I was able to boot up in Safe Mode per your help. I do not have the disk nor the key lost them ages ago I downloaded needed drivers to my Vaio and transferred them to USB flashdrive.

When I. Hi, I read your article. To continue, using usb flashdrive to download updated drivers, but I cannot get past Windows Install inactive issue. I also had your problem of zero connectivity. Thanks For that Leo However i have Used Activate by phone with no connectivity to net But it did recognise the Network card and gave me activation number,But you are correct Microsoft Tech support really do not have a clue when this happens,There is a work round if you have a Usb wireless dongle and drivers for same it happily activates once it accepts install key Regards Martin.

My friend had the same type of scenario with his laptop connection to the Net and afyter countless hours on ther phone to his ISP they could not figure out his problem and told him to buy a new PC..

I came out tried the same scenario s as he had tried.. Thank you for this article. I had the same problem, although with a further twist after I had recovered the activation ID as you describe.

This took forever longer than the whole XP install but it worked. Thank you for this article, Mr. Hi, I have the same problem Not got the original Dell CD but when using another WXP installation disk the activation with the nine six digit numbers did not work. Just said you may be subject of counterfeiting.

Tried Dell and they cannot help. Have not found a technical number for Microsoft in the UK yet but I will and see what happens. Still got 30 days!!! Install Service Pack 3 in Safe Mode — download onto flash drive from another computer and then use flash drive on the computer you want to activate.

Takes a while so be patient. Restart Windows — you will get in — reactivation nag is now in System Tray. You should also have an Activation ID now. Leo said he needs to use a different key. He needs use the OEM key from Dell. It should be on the machine itself. Some Dell systems use a special restore partition, which might of be deleted when he put Linux on the system. The original key should work. It is possible the OEM key from dell got compromised and could be on the blacklist.

Once, xpsp 3 support totally ends. This problem should go away, because Microsoft is suppose to issue a patch to by-pass the activation requirement s. If that battery is weak then some mobo features get turned on and off intermittently even while Windows runs and hence 1 Windows complains about activating again since mobo features changed and 2 cannot calculate the ID.

New disk in old PC. Used original install disk and key from label. Had a similar issue except we configure the network to a private manual IP address. So no activation. That really depends on what you want. Some like me do not like the OEM installs. Every laptop I ever bought was first wiped clean by reinstalling MY copy of windows and then selecting which drivers and software I wanted on my machine.

All manufacturers make these drivers available for download. It depends on what you want and how capable you are. You should not have to be connected to the internet to enable your software. Any imposition on the user is wrong. My first computer had 2k of RAM.

I was a beta tester for Windows version 1. Every one of them turned out to be annoying. I especially hated the dongles that had to hang off the serial port of your PC like early versions of AutoCad. Thankfully AutoCad quickly moved away from that dreaded device. Without exception, every method of authentication that I have seen in 30 years has been defeatable.

Although I bought and paid for the AutoCad software I hated the dongle and I easily hacked the program to defeat it. It was way back then I realized that hackers had it easier than honest customers.

I have a great dislike for any effort that encumbers me, a paying customer, for using software that I purchased. That brings us to my experience this past week. I decided to build a new PC as my old one was displaying some quirky lockups that I felt were hardware related somewhere in the motherboard or CPU.

Probably from overclocking it a little harshly. So I bought new components to put in my old case. I have multiple licenses for Windows 7, about 5 in total. I go to install Windows 8 from the very disk that Microsoft had me download when I upgraded one of my Windows 7 licenses in December I was holding in front of me a copy of the email from Microsoft with the activation key in it. I get about 90 seconds into the installation and it asks me for my license key, which I carefully type in. It tells me the key is not valid.

There was no phone number to call for help, or suggestion of any kind. I rebooted and tried again. I know I put the right code in.

It is now 8pm and I am wanting to install that night. I ran out to Best Buy and bought a brand new copy of Windows 8. I get home and it installs, but when I get up and running in Windows it still wants me to activate, so I decided to use my older activation key instead of the newer one. It fails and prompts me to call and activate over the phone. I call and try to activate and the automated system is completely senile and does not understand a word I say and if a stray sound in the background gets to your phone it completely throws it for a loop.

I swear it is some kind of joke by Microsoft specifically designed to piss off customers. The gibberish now frustrates the automated guy and he puts me through to a real person. I give the very nice and polite representative a warning, an apology, and then a piece of my mind regarding the process. He remains very nice and calm and after a little checking he tells me my old Windows 8 key is valid…..

He offers this information to me as if I had just won the lottery. He proceeds to give me an activation number. He apologizes for the trouble and we part ways. Next I go to install the Windows 7 drive.

This goes a little more smoothly…. I did not have to put in a key to install initially, but when I got up and running I decided to activate immediately. It tells me my key is not valid and prompts me to go through the phone activation. I go through the same aggravating process with the idiot automated system and gibberish my way to a real person. This guy takes a while to check my key. I am holding the Windows 7 Ultimate package in my hand with the nice holographic sticker containing my key.

He proceeds to tell me that my key is suspicious as it has been activated 14 times. I also told him it did not matter how many times I used it as I owned that license and if I wanted to install it a thousand times it was my prerogative as long as I did not violate the terms of the license.

I offered to send him a photo of me holding the box with pretty sticker and me flipping the bird as proof I owned it. He hemmed and hawed for a minute and then seeming as if he was doing me a favor he proclaimed that I could, in fact, activate my installation. Gee, thank you lord Microsoft. All was working, but with a few quirks for about two days.

I installed it from the holographic Microsoft CD with the pretty holographic label that had just been activated by Microsoft. No activation key is displayed and no place to enter a code. No support number. No anything. I check my phone and find the number I called a few days earlier and ring them back. Now I gibberish from the very start and I got person rather quickly. He hears me out and offers no help. He seems stumped, which is kind of surprising considering this is what he does for a living.

I mean how many possible scenarios can his job entail? He finally says he will put me through to tech support. About 20 minutes in at this point. Another 5 minutes later I get the tech support guy on the phone and I first apologize and tell him it was not personal and I proceed to give him an ear full to carry back to his bosses. He tells me he has to remotely access my PC to fix it. About 30 more minutes goes by and he is rebooting my PC.

It comes back up and he is still controlling it, which was creepy. He then gets it to now display the activation application and he types in the code and activates it. All told it was about 90 minutes wasted This was two days ago. Today I woke up and turned on the PC and it will not start. The motherboard locks with a code at the same point every time. The local MicroCenter sold me the last one they had so I had to drive to Virginia to get another one.

Two hours. Bank of America, BTW. I digress, but let me finish. I spent an hour on the phone with a representative who ended up telling me they could do nothing and my wife had to call another number to have the card reactivated. I finally get back to replacing the motherboard.

I start it up in Windows 8 Pro. The only place to go from there was the activation screen again. Holy Crap! I had to call Microsoft, gibberish a little, and explain my motherboard issue. At least it went pretty smoothly this time. I have yet to boot into my Windows 7 partition since the motherboard replacement.

I dread the thought. I swear, I will never buy another copy of Windows as long as I live. It will be MUCH easier to install a pirated copy than to pay for it. I have a few pirated versions that I use on test equipment. It is much easier to go that route. Microsoft has wasted many man hours on this. Is it worth it to anyone? I would swear this was all due to some recent policy change at Microsoft. Sometimes I would do it ten times in a week while I was screwing around with technologies and testing them out.

I have always believed that the folks who pirate software are wonderful advertisers for the software. The people who pirate are almost all in the business of computing. There is no way they can pay for everything they try out. They are the ones that people go for advice. They are the ones who suggest to others what to get. I know that I have been an incredible sales rep over the past thirty years. I have pirated a LOT of software. I did so mainly for the purposes of playing with and learning stuff.

Every piece of software I did use on a regular basis I absolutely paid for. In the early nineties there was an epiphany by many of the software companies that I really though made sense.

Many companies came around to the same logic I just described. They also realized that authentication schemes only served to alienate their customers. Like everything at Microsoft these days they are completely out of touch with reality and sensibility. They have really pissed off this customer. Two letters in this file, told me what was going on — RC release candidate. Is it legal for a computer sold to a domestic market in New Zealand, to have a release candidate?

I thought they were given to Beta Testers only. I doubt if there are any laws concerning thing like that. So I open up the activation window and as this computer is not connected to the Internet, I tried the phone method and was welcomed by a blank installation ID. So, I thought, lets try it on the internet method, without being connected to the internet and it obviously failed… but then I went back to the phone activation and there was my installation ID! Activation was successful — no problems.

That is why more and more people are keeping themselves safely away from Microsoft. Microsoft is an open door for hackers some employed by Microsoft itself, whether from India or somewhere else. I had some of those hackers hacking my computer six times. Search Ask Leo!

Do this Subscribe to Confident Computing! I'll see you there! Very strange. One solution to this problem is to make disk image backups. Thanks for the info on the USB drive viruses and turning off autoplay. My opinion is that your install CD was corrupted, thats; why the installation did not reboot and was not finished your NIC driver was missing Anyhow, if you have a message that you need to activate and you cannot login, You can get around it, just look around try F1 for help, find any link that will open Internet Explorer.

Microsoft needs to stop acting like a bully in the market place. I had a similar problem. This has worked for me. Leo, Thanks for this article, it now gives me renewed hope!

At the end, I found out that the solution was exactly the same as mentioned in the article by Barry at May 19, AM: 1. Thanks Leo! Thanks again, Per PS: Never, ever think that a support rep can help you with this stuff — always go to the internet!!

Leo, your way has been patched, and its very hard to re-install xp now. Perfect This worked for me use online validate by clicking back and rebooting computer all good. Hello, I know that this is an old thread but it appears to still be active.

So which product key did you end up using the one from the laptop or the new one? Just had the same problem working on a clients computer. Any suggestions, anyone? I could really use some help here! I had the same problem. Your solution worked! Thank you!!! I have a similar problem for a different reason.

Attempts to hand update via the microsoft site are blocked because I have an incomplete update and need to restart 3. GB worth of files in the temporary directory 5.

Finally resolved my problem after hours with MS Support and EasyAssist — just delete a registry entry but an amusing interlude… refresh: my problem was that the microsoft installer demanded a restart to complete an update which was not satisfied by a restart.

Some great articles here, keep up the good work! Ben London, UK.