windows XP authentication, on a 2nd hand pc?

brightonman123

I am getting the nagging popup, saying pc at risk blah blah, but when i go to thew microsoft site to enter 2 digit product key code, i get a message saying thats a volume code, so STILL need to buy a proper version, etc?

surely whoever loaded it has paid already.. any way around this?

shoulda stuck with W/ME..

JasX

brightonman123 wrote: »

surely whoever loaded it has paid already.. any way around this?

well obviously not if its a) asking for activation and b) they have given you a duff code that doesn't match the version installed.

brightonman123

number was found on the pc registry..

[Deleted User]

Hi,

is this any help to you?

gonzo127

it sounds like it could be a pirate copy of windows that was installed by whoever you brought it from

basically a volumn license is one issued to a big company to be used many times (saves them having to have a seperate key for each computer) however what happens over time is that they find out that someone has either hacked or leaked the key issued to them so they report it to Microsoft,

microsoft in turn will issue another volumn key to them to update their systems with and then they de-activate the previous volumn key so everyone running the pirated copy can no longer update their system and will keep on getting a warning message that they need to buy a genuine copy

ALTHOUGH this can quite easily happen to a genuine copy if something has gone wrong with your registery, i had something simular on my gaming system running vista and i had to re-validate it all to egt it working again

John_Gray

brightonman123 wrote: »

number was found on the pc registry..

The Windows XP Product Key isn't held in readable form in the registry! And it consists of 5 groups of five upper-case-alphabetic and numeric characters. See what Nir Sofer's ProduKey produces, if anything.

JasX

John_Gray wrote: »

The Windows XP Product Key isn't held in readable form in the registry! And it consists of 5 groups of five upper-case-alphabetic and numeric characters. See what Nir Sofer's ProduKey produces, if anything.

Plus even were you to extract 'a product key' from the registry whether or not it is/ever was legal and valid is a separate question.

John_Gray

JasX wrote: »

Plus even were you to extract 'a product key' from the registry whether or not it is/ever was legal and valid is a separate question.

Err, you typed a valid Windows product Key in in the first place. Whyever would it not be 'legal' to be reminded of what you typed in?

If it's not a legal copy of Windows, then that is another and different matter, as you say, but using the ProduKey program is morally neutral, surely.

mongoose2009

do you have the legit key? if so do the following to first deactivate then re activate windows

Deactivate Windows
Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
In the navigation pane, locate and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents
In the topic pane, right-click OOBETimer, and then click Modify.
Change at least one digit of this value to deactivate Windows.
Reactivate Windows and add new product key
Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type the following command, and then click OK.
%systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a
Click Yes, I want to telephone a customer service representative to activate Windows, and then click Next.
Click Change Product key.
Type the new product key in the New key boxes, and then click Update.

If you are returned to the previous window, click Remind me later, and then restart the computer.
Repeat steps 1 and 2 to verify that Windows is activated. You receive the following message:
Windows is already activated. Click OK to exit.
Click OK.
Install Windows XP Service Pack 1a or a later version of Windows XP.

forgotmyname

Do you have a genuine windows sticker on the case with a serial number?

If you do try downloading the tool from MS to change the key to that.