A newbie question: activating XP

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Alex

Greetings,

I'm new to Windows - have been using Mac for many years. In order to run
some of the sofware I need for my work I bought an used PC, NetVista by
IBM, where the terminal and system is made as one unit. It had Windows
XP installed in it. Surprisingly, the system turned out to be very
stable, with no problems and crashes. But I guess it's a human nature to
create problems where there aren't any...

Each time upon startup I was getting a message "new upgrade is ready for
your computer." First I was ignoring it, but then one not so fine day I
thought, "what the heck, let's do update and see what happens." What
actually happened is that my computer downloaded Service Pack 2 and then
asked me to activate the Windows. When I pressed the activation, it
informed me that my product code had been used by another computer and I
need to pay $240 for activation. I paid for this computer much less
than that and, besides, I'm planning to buy a brand new system in a
couple of months.

So what should I do now? Before I installed the Service Pack 2 it never
asked for any activation. Now it gave me 30 days to activate. From
reading other posts in this group I realize that after 30 days my system
will stop working. Should I try to restore the system to previous state
by unistalling SP2? I just need this computer for a couple of more
months before I buy a new one. One more thing: when I bought it, I
bought it "as is" (at office liquidation sale) - with no disks or
instructions. It never occured to me that my OS might by pirated - it
was seemly respectable office, after all. I haven't talked yet to
Microsoft customer service yet.

Thank you in advance for any help and advice.

Alex

alex at netropolis dot net
 
Alex said:
Greetings,

I'm new to Windows - have been using Mac for many years. In order to
run some of the sofware I need for my work I bought an used PC,
NetVista by IBM, where the terminal and system is made as one unit.
It had Windows XP installed in it. Surprisingly, the system turned
out to be very stable, with no problems and crashes. But I guess it's
a human nature to create problems where there aren't any...

Each time upon startup I was getting a message "new upgrade is ready
for your computer." First I was ignoring it, but then one not so fine
day I thought, "what the heck, let's do update and see what happens."
What actually happened is that my computer downloaded Service Pack 2
and then asked me to activate the Windows. When I pressed the
activation, it informed me that my product code had been used by
another computer and I need to pay $240 for activation. I paid for
this computer much less than that and, besides, I'm planning to buy
a brand new system in a couple of months.

So what should I do now? Before I installed the Service Pack 2 it
never asked for any activation. Now it gave me 30 days to activate.
From reading other posts in this group I realize that after 30 days
my system will stop working. Should I try to restore the system to
previous state by unistalling SP2? I just need this computer for a
couple of more months before I buy a new one. One more thing: when I
bought it, I bought it "as is" (at office liquidation sale) - with no
disks or instructions. It never occured to me that my OS might by
pirated - it was seemly respectable office, after all. I haven't
talked yet to Microsoft customer service yet.

Thank you in advance for any help and advice.

Alex

alex at netropolis dot net
Click to expand...

Use the telephone option for activation.

--
Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE
Please respond in Newsgroup only. Do not send email
http://www.fjsmjs.com
Protect your PC
http://www.microsoft.com./athome/security/protect/default.aspx
http://defendingyourmachine.blogspot.com/
 
Hi,

Fact is, if you didn't get a legit copy of the installation, you are stuck.
From the sounds of it, you got a used piece of equipment and were lucky that
there was still a working installation on it. However, that isn't a valid
license for the system, not will uninstalling SP2 resolve the issue. Try
phoning in the activation, the worst that can happen is that you are
refused. If so, you'll need a legit version and have to do a repair
installation with it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
I have never seen a message stating as you say
"When I pressed the activation, it
informed me that my product code had been used by another computer and I
need to pay $240 for activation."
Click to expand...

Can you please supply the exact error message?
 
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