Removing WinXP Home Licence?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Dave Bowe
  • Start date Start date
D

Dave Bowe

Hi there,

I have a home version of winxp and have had to reinstall due to HD failure -
however, I cannot reinstall because I am told by Microsoft that I have
installed too many times. Is there any way to reset this so I can reinstall
my purchased copy of WinXP?

Regards, Dave.
 
If you reinstall less than I think it's 120 days after the last time you
can't activate it automatically. You have to call Microsoft to activate it.
You can actually install it as many times as needed it's just that within
that 120 day (or however many days it is) limit you can't do it over the
net.
 
-----Original Message-----
Hi there,

I have a home version of winxp and have had to reinstall due to HD failure -
however, I cannot reinstall because I am told by Microsoft that I have
installed too many times. Is there any way to reset this so I can reinstall
my purchased copy of WinXP?
Click to expand...


Do you mean you cannot "reinstall" OR you cannot ACTIVATE?
There are no limitions on how many times you install, but
there ARE limitaions on activation.
 
Dave Bowe said:
Hi there,

I have a home version of winxp and have had to reinstall due to HD failure -
however, I cannot reinstall because I am told by Microsoft that I have
installed too many times. Is there any way to reset this so I can reinstall
my purchased copy of WinXP?

Regards, Dave.
Click to expand...

Dave,

We (Microsoft) have not told you you cannot install. You are seeing the
message from the activation servers that you have already used the Product
Activation Key a number of times. This is not a problem. Just select to
activate via telephone. You will have to speak to a live person - you will
then be able to reactive after you explain that you are reinstalling on the
same machine again.

--
Regards,

Mike
--
Mike Brannigan [Microsoft]

This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no
rights

Please note I cannot respond to e-mailed questions, please use these
newsgroups
 
This seems to me to be a misleading response Mike. There are no limitations to the number of times you can activate an XP OS on the same machine. I have done it at least 15 times in one week during testing. What I rather suspect happened is that the individual replaced too many components and the encoded activation in the wpa.dbl file was too different and as it is designed to install on only one machine the activation process on the Microsoft end saw this as being a copy that had already been activated on another machine. Just to be clear "THERE ARE NO LIMITS TO THE NUMBER OF TIMES AN XP OS CAN BE ACTIVATED ON THE SAME MACHINE". No I'm not shouting, just making it clear. Good luck.
 
It's amazing how many different people know how many different facts. (This
is not an attack on anybody in particular just an observation)
1 Some people say you can only activate so many times period. ( I know
that isn't true)
2 Some say you have to call in if you've installed and activated less
than 120 days ago. (The one I thought was true)
3 And now there's no limitations at all. 15 times during a week without
having to call it in?

Now I have to wonder which of these statements is true. (ignoring the 1st
one which is ridiculous but believed by some)

The Unknown P said:
This seems to me to be a misleading response Mike. There are no
Click to expand...
limitations to the number of times you can activate an XP OS on the same
machine. I have done it at least 15 times in one week during testing. What I
rather suspect happened is that the individual replaced too many components
and the encoded activation in the wpa.dbl file was too different and as it
is designed to install on only one machine the activation process on the
Microsoft end saw this as being a copy that had already been activated on
another machine. Just to be clear "THERE ARE NO LIMITS TO THE NUMBER OF
TIMES AN XP OS CAN BE ACTIVATED ON THE SAME MACHINE". No I'm not shouting,
just making it clear. Good luck.
 
It's amazing how many different people know how many different facts. (This
is not an attack on anybody in particular just an observation)
1 Some people say you can only activate so many times period. ( I know
that isn't true)
2 Some say you have to call in if you've installed and activated less
than 120 days ago. (The one I thought was true)
3 And now there's no limitations at all. 15 times during a week without
having to call it in?

Now I have to wonder which of these statements is true. (ignoring the 1st
one which is ridiculous but believed by some)
Click to expand...

1. Is not true for Windows. There are some older versions of Office
(MSO2000, I believe) that might say you have activated too many times.
A call to MS sets that one straight.

2. The 120 days was a change added by SP1. It is the time span to
accomodate folks that upgrade their hardware often. Each time you add
or change certain bits of hardware, it adds a vote. Accumulate so many
votes within 120 days and you call for activation instead of using the
internet. At the end of 120 days, the accumulated votes get reset to
zero.

3. May or may not be true. If installing to the same hardware - a
repair install or reinstall, chances are good that activation will
take place over the internet.

If doing a clean install, it still should go through on the internet
but you may get prompted to call after installing x amount of times in
a short time period. There is no exact limits published for this as
far as I know. Personally, I have never run into it.

I have had to call in twice for my personal desktop. Once was a repair
install after swapping out my motherboard. The other time, I installed
a hard drive, a dvd writer and a new display adapter all in the same
day. Both times I had bumped the vote number for hardware changes over
the limit. The phone calls took less than 5 minutes each.

Alex Nichol has an excellent article about product activation on Jim
Eshelman's site. Besides being a clear and concise explanation of
activation, it covers what hardware is considered and how many votes
each device carries:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm
 
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