XP Pro Deactivated itself

  • Thread starter Thread starter RMDelano
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R

RMDelano

6 of 12 XP Pro PCs at one of my customers after being installed and
activated for more than a year suddenly locked out users and said that
Windows must be activated or you have to log off. They reactivated
just fine, but what would cause them to deactivate?

RD
 
I have made no hardware changes since install, windows is kept up to
date with WSUS, and AntiVirus / AntiSpyware are all up to date.
 
Every now and then this seems to inexplicably happen with a few computers.
A big clue in your post "6 of 12 XP Pro PCs".
What do those 6 have in common, answer that and you may find the answer to
your question.
 
Unfortunately, the PCs are a mix of custom PCs or Gateways and the
problem has happened on both.

Good point though, that is a tastey clud I missed.

Thanks
 
6 of 12 XP Pro PCs at one of my customers after being installed and
activated for more than a year suddenly locked out users and said that
Windows must be activated or you have to log off. They reactivated
just fine, but what would cause them to deactivate?

RD
Click to expand...

If the activation control files (wpa.dbl and wpa.bak) were somehow
deleted from the hard drive or moved to another location then that
might do it.

Also under some circumstances a BIOS update can cause hardware devices
to be recognized differently by the computer and that could then count
as a hardware component "change" by the activation software.

Changes in the monitored components are cumulative and so it could
only take a change in a single monitored item (e.g. the volume/serial
number of the boot hard drive changed after a reformat) to trigger the
requirement to reactivate.

See the late MVP Alex Nichol's explanation of WPA:
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."
 
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