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05/01/2008 at 02:08PM PDT, ID: 23370111
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9.7

Need qualified advice regarding licensing and activation

Asked by BillDL in Windows XP Operating System

Tags: Microsoft, Windows, XP Home, OEM Issue

Hi Experts.

I have a desktop PC I was asked by a work colleague to "have a look at".  It was his sister's, and is being given to him as she has bought herself a laptop.  It was screwed up after virus removal, but I've made it stable now.

The PC is a "Time" make with a Windows XP Home COA on the case.  XP Home came preinstalled without a Recovery or full reinstallation CD.  I have no way of knowing what the original "source" was, because a well meaning relative went and installed an illegal copy of XP Pro on the PC.  I can see vestiges of Windows 98 DOS files, so it looks like he formatted the drive as FAT32 and made it bootable to DOS for the purposes of installing XP Pro.  Obviously the CD-Key for XP Pro now differs from the original genuine one on the XP Home COA attached to the case.

The large UK-based OEM named Time went bust a number of years ago, and it looks like the brand was bought by another company who now don't offer any support for older Time systems.  They got bad press for being very good at "selling existing Time customers new XP CD's" and little else.

I am keen to get this system legal, and given that there is a COA on the case, I propose wiping it and installing a fresh copy of XP Home from a legitimate OEM CD that I bought a while back.  My worry about doing this is that my OEM CD has not yet been installed or activated on one of my PCs yet, andf I don't want to invalidate it for my own legitimate use.

I believe that the CD-Key plus a number of other factors including a unique CD identification number creates a hash file used to activate the operating system.

If I install XP Home on the PC using the CD Key from the COA on the computer's case and then activate it (assuming it works), will this invalidate my XP Home OEM CD when I get around to installing it on another computer using the proper COA that came with the CD?

Thanks
Bill
[+][-]05/01/08 02:33 PM, ID: 21482946

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Zone: Windows XP Operating System
Tags: Microsoft, Windows, XP Home, OEM Issue
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Solution Provided By: souseran
Participating Experts: 2
Solution Grade: A
 
 
[+][-]05/01/08 02:37 PM, ID: 21482965

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[+][-]05/02/08 02:28 AM, ID: 21485413

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