Activate Windows XP Home: Solutions & Tips

[mattmns]

I guess I have installed Windows XP Home on my computer too many times, and now I am not being allowed to "activate windows" (it says: According to our records the number of times you can activate windows with this product key has been exceeded.). That is quite possibly true, I have installed windows on my computer probably more than 20 times over the last 4 years (I do a fresh install before every semester, and have used Linux a few times).

So, the question becomes, what should I do here? I am not going to spend $100+ to get another cd/key. And I really don't want to mess around with linux right now. I have been thinking about just re-installing every 30 days, but I hate having to download everything and set everything up again. Any ideas? Thanks!

edit... I would probably be willing to use Linux (K/Ubuntu) if there was a way to play .m4a music files, and if the video support (.wmv and other extensions) were better supported (I don't want to rip all of my music again, and too many sites use .wmv for porn ). I have not used linux (Ubuntu) in probably 2 years, so maybe they have found ways to run these things by now?

 

[neutrino]

edit... I would probably be willing to use Linux (K/Ubuntu) if there was a way to play .m4a music files, and if the video support (.wmv and other extensions) were better supported (I don't want to rip all of my music again, and too many sites use .wmv for porn ). I have not used linux (Ubuntu) in probably 2 years, so maybe they have found ways to run these things by now?

Read this
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RestrictedFormats

 

[Ronnin]

Well you could call Microsoft and tell them the situation and see if they will issue you a new key. The XP license is perpetual and you can run it however long you want. Your machine hash should be the same if you installed XP on the same system. I would think they would be able to verify that if you called. If this all becomes an exersise in futility then perhaps you should just wait and spend the 100 on an upgrade to Vista when it become available. But, if your system is anything like mine, it will take some money to upgrade the hardware to run that heavy OS. If you arn't a gamer linux is a great option and with all the great distros out it's a lot easier to install and run than you think.

 

[neutrino]

You might also want to try Linux Mint, which is essentially Ubuntu with proprietary software/codecs/plugins pre-loaded. Personally, I haven't tried it.

http://lt.k1011.nutime.de/

 

[mattmns]

Thanks for the quick responses. Looks like the support is better now, so I will mess around with linux again (downloading kubuntu right now).

 

[mattmns]

Messing around with Ubuntu was annoying me, so I reinstalled windows, and called Microsoft, and they hooked me up

 

[DJMatty]

Hi,

Just wanted to tell the original poster, you can activate it as many times as you like. What you should do is select activate over the phone, call the number for your country, and go through the activation process. It will fail and you will get put through to an operator, tell them you re-installed and they will give you the code to enter into your xp activation window, and reset the count for you.

So you don't have to swap to linux unless you want to! You definitely don't have to buy a new license just because you have installed it a few times.

HTH

Matt