Will Microsoft activate this for me?

WeatherMan

WeatherMan

Active Member
Hi guys,

I've bought my sister an old laptop on eBay as a Christmas present, and found the hard drive to to be REALLY slow, so I've upgraded replaced it with an 80GB one, as well as double the RAM to 2GB.

There was no recovery CD with this laptop so I've had to install an OS to the new drive, which is XP Home SP2 32-bit from an old CD I had from another build.

I have the COA sticker on the back of this laptop but the activation wizard won't let me activate the system. Can I call Microsoft and have them activate it for me? The sticker is for Home edition too, but I don't know whether it's OEM or 32-bit. I would assume it's also OEM, and 32-bit because the laptop is from 2004.

I'm just asking here, cos I don't want to call up and be told what I've tried to do is 'illegal'? :P
 
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They will either tell you yes or no. The thing is you have an OEM key and you installed a retail copy. Tell them exactly what you did and I would suspect that they will activate it for you.
 
The install disk is actually an OEM copy too!

I bought it from amazon years ago with some PC components, installed it with the key on the bottom of the laptop and it went through, but just wont activate with the MS servers!
 
A robot now? Back in circa 2007 or so I had made a "significant hardware change" and had to call M$ for activation. Talked to a guy in India I think it was.
 
You can still talk to a person but that requires a web search, the number the activation software provides is the damn robot.
 
Agent Smith said:
A robot now? Back in circa 2007 or so I had made a "significant hardware change" and had to call M$ for activation. Talked to a guy in India I think it was.
Click to expand...

DMGrier said:
You can still talk to a person but that requires a web search, the number the activation software provides is the damn robot.
Click to expand...

And if you have issues talking to the robot then you are transferred to a human.
 
voyagerfan99 said:
And if you have issues talking to the robot then you are transferred to a human.
Click to expand...

Exactly.

I did used to have problems, but I think they've improved it now.

I got annoyed at an Indian dude at Microsoft who thought I was a woman and kept calling me 'ma'am'. Then I shouted down the phone 'I HATE YOU!' when the automated line asked for feedback.

Oh, the good old days. ;)

But anyway, call Microsoft and they'll probably activate it for you. I've never had to activate XP over the phone before, only Vista and 7, but I assume the process is the same.
 
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