Re-activating Windows XP after a full reformat

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wallabing

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Ok, so far I have never got any real help from other places.

I have a 100% legit copy of Windows XP Pro OEM I bought from Newegg

Now my current installation is messed up because I messed around with the regedit and it wont boot up at all. My bad :(

I have recently changed my CPU, RAM and added a hard drive. After I reformat and re-install Windows XP Pro agian, will I be able to re-activate over the internet quickly and painlessly, or will I have to phone in to Microsoft to re-activate, since it is a OEM copy?

Please dont go off topic and talk about corporate edition, or tell me to get a corporate edition of WinXP because that's about the only answer I get from other forums.

Any help appreciated! :D
 
I can tell you from experience that the Windows activation goes by hardware configuration. So if you make major changes to your system you won't be able to activate windows automatically, you will probably have to call. I am not sure what the tolerances are but I think the changes have to be pretty significant for the activation problem to occur.
 
With all those changes yuo are not going to be able to activate via the interent. you wil have to cal Microsoft. But it is no big deal, I have done it several times, they will simply ask you if you have the OS on more than one machine, then they will give you the activation key.
 
fastco said:
I can tell you from experience that the Windows activation goes by hardware configuration. So if you make major changes to your system you won't be able to activate windows automatically, you will probably have to call. I am not sure what the tolerances are but I think the changes have to be pretty significant for the activation problem to occur.

As said above is true, when you register your copy of Windows, it records this data

- serial number of the system volumne
- MAC adress of the network card
- CD ROM ID
- display adapter ID
- CPU ID
- CPU serial number
- harddisk ID
- IDE controller ID

And assiciates it with that particular copy of windows, if you have made a lot of changes to your system then it is likely it will not recognize it, it is likely that you will have to call Microsoft. For more information about activation, check out this site
 
-serial number of the system volumne
- MAC adress of the network card
- CD ROM ID
- display adapter ID
- CPU ID
- CPU serial number
- harddisk ID
- IDE controller ID

the last two items are not part of the checking. the first one does all that.
you are assigned 10 points. if you score less than 7, internet will not validate you, and you have to call in. mac address of the nic card (normally called "nic/mac" or network interface card media access control) is assigned 3 points. so with a mother board with built-in nic card, you've already gone below the score.
 
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