Windows Update Problem

spud17

Posting on behalf of a friend.

He has had the same HP laptop for the past 5 years, with no problems at all, never formatted or anything.
He bought it via his then girlfriend, who bought it from her employer, who would wipe /re-install XP Professional on replaced laptops, then offer them to employees.

He rarely uses it, but since last weeks updates, he now has a black desktop telling him his XP is not a valid copy.

I wonder if it could be a Corporate license issue?

Any suggestions as to what is the problem?

As he only browses and emails, I could try him on a Linux distro, a new machine of any description is not an option.

I cannot be here all the time but will look back later.

TIA R

Marty_J

You might be able to find a solution here. WGA has been known to have problems sometimes.

spud17

Thanks Marty J,

I'm just having a "Google" and it seems that recent MS updates have tightened security against piracy, this has hit a large proportion of users in China, HERE and HERE.

Conor_3

The licence is illegal. It is a corporate volume licence only for use by the company that bought it.
Some large companies run their own activation servers and it looks like the laptop was looking for it to re-authenticate the copy of XP.

Either shove Ubuntu 8.10 on it, although remember to check for the hard drive load cycle count bug, or buy a copy of XP with a proper licence.

spud17

Conor wrote: »

The licence is illegal. It is a corporate volume licence only for use by the company that bought it.
Some large companies run their own activation servers and it looks like the laptop was looking for it to re-authenticate the copy of XP.

Thanks Conor, you've saved me going around to his house tomorrow afternoon after work to check the COA first hand.

I wonder if it could be a Corporate license issue?

I have not seen the COA, but it was something that crossed my mind. However from 300miles away you have been able, with 100% certainty, to tell me it is illegal!

However your ESP is slightly flawed, or else it would have told you the specification of the laptop.
It must already run like a sloth on Mogadon wading through molasses, with 700mhz processor and 288mb RAM, this is equivalent to the bare minimum for Ubuntu 8.10.

Anyway other recent posts on this forum suggest this may not be an isolated incident.