Reintalling Xp Pro

[jbhsuman]

I purchased a copy of XP Pro off of Ebay and installed in on one of my laptops without any issues. I had even run the utility to check to make sure this was a genuine copy without any problems.

Recently the LT died and I purchased a new LP that came with XP Home. I installed the same copy of XP pro onto the new LT and now it tells me that this is not a genuine copy.

Is this because it was previously registered to a different computer? If this is the case how can I "unregistered" this copy from the old computer and register it to the new computer?

 

[bcastner]

If it was the case that activation was complaining of your prior installation of XP, it would not give you a genuine copy error but something quite different.

What does these report when you run them?

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/whyValidate.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/howtotell/en/default.mspx

See the following FAQ for more details, including the genuine Windows Offer to convert illegal copies to legal copies:

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/FAQ.aspx?displaylang=en

 

[linney]

Pirated Keys (Product Keys) are a "work in progress" type of situation, with dodgy keys being added to a Microsoft list all the time.

Use something like Belarc Advisor to make sure you have not mistyped your Product Key.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

You could also read the Eula.txt from the System32 folder, search for the word "transfer".

I was always under the impression if you scrapped an old machine or it died etc. you could contact Microsoft and with their help transfer your XP to the new machine. Perhaps this is something you can explore with them.

 

[bcastner]

Not with an OEM license. It is tied to the original hardware purchased at that time.

 

[gargoyle47]

You said jbhsuman :

I had even run the utility to check

What program is this you used?

When you installed the OEM copy how did you activate it? Where you able to do this online or did you have to call it in?
You said:

I installed the same copy of XP

Did you format the drive and then install the Pro copy or did you over install the copy?
To bcastner:
You said:

Not with an OEM license. It is tied to the original hardware purchased at that time.

This partly true however it all depends on what OEM disk you receive. Recently the big box companies (Dell, HP) have been able to read the bios and see if the bios match what is on the disk, if they match ok if not the it will abort.

But this does not apply to all OEM disk, in many cases the install disk will work with any computer no matter what it says on the disk. A lot of times when purchasing from ebay you will receive a mouse or some other hardware, so that it qualifies for OEM statics. In no way is this the disk tied to this piece of hardware.

Let us see what our original poster has to say.

Never Say Never (Romeio Void)

Homebuilt MSI MD5000MD-5000 M-ATX, 2.4Gig, 393mb, WinXp Pro
Homebuilt Iwill KK266R-Plus, 768mb, WinXp Pro

 

[bcastner]

Your comments on OEM re-installation on a new computer confuse what can be done with what the license requires.

This partly true however it all depends on what OEM disk you receive. Recently the big box companies (Dell, HP) have been able to read the bios and see if the bios match what is on the disk, if they match ok if not the it will abort.

There is nothing recent about it. OEM SLP licenses have been used since 2001. However, this changed in February, 2005. Any reinstallation on OEM SLP based machines (one where you use the COA on the box case) will now require phone activation.

But this does not apply to all OEM disk, in many cases the install disk will work with any computer no matter what it says on the disk. A lot of times when purchasing from ebay you will receive a mouse or some other hardware, so that it qualifies for OEM statics. In no way is this the disk tied to this piece of hardware.

An XP Pro license cannot be moved to another machine. That is in the licensing agreement. OEM Home can be sold but it must be with hardware (a mouse, a power chord, a keyboard, a hard drive, or something like that). The intent was for a computer system, but the EULA is ambiguos in the XP Home Edition case.

 

[jbhsuman]

Thank you all for responding. Gargoyl, to answer your question, the utility I ran is the verification check from one of the MS patches I down loaded during a MS Update. As for the installation, I first tried to run it as an upgrade over the existing Home install but ran into errors. Subsequently I ended up doing a fresh install and reformatting the partition using NTSF rather then FAT. I activated the license on line.

Bcastner, am I to understand that the XP Pro license lives and dies with the computer it's registared with? I'm a little confused since I have been able to do this with other desktop machines that I have upgraded in the past.

Any suggestions?

 

[bcastner]

Upgrades are a different case. For OEM SLP you could legally replace every single part in the computer as long as the motherboard BIOS contained the same information required for the original OEM SLP installation. See:

http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/activation_faq.mspx

In general, activation will be triggered depending on the hardware changes made. Formatting the hard disk is gauranteed to trigger activation. Everything else is kind of a scorecard:

http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm

 

[bcastner]

Try the WGA diagnostic test (new):

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;916247&sd=rss&spid=3223