exceeded time i can register

[deankenny]

i bought a legitimate copy of xp virtually just after it came out and obviously because of upgrades, formats new comps etc i have used my own copy to install again but now it says i have exceeded my limit, surely thats not fair as i paid £100 for it some years ago, is this occurance known and sorted or do i need a new copy?

 

[PC eye]

Are you referring to activating your current installation of Windows? If you have reinstalled Windows repeatedly within a certain period of time the activation process will fail until a certain amount of time has passed. You can Microsoft directly if you don't want to wait a few weeks to try again to have an operator there take you through the manual process. The operator will have you enter certain instructions and read off the product id number seen. Then you will be given another number to type in.

In the event you have to reinstall XP on the same system with the same hardwares you don't always have to go back to Microsoft. You can backup your current activation code onto a floppy or other removable media in the event your system is hit with a virus or for some other reason you are forced to reinstall Windows. In Windows Explorer or MyCompputer you go to the tools>folder options and open the file types tab. There you add "dbl" as a new file type and go to the "C:\Windows\system32\" and look for the "wpa.dbl" file and copy this to a safe location.

Once Windows is reinstalled you change the new one found at that time to "wpanoact.dbl" and copy the one you saved into the system32 folder. Upon restart of the system the prompt for activating Windows will disappear. Your installation is still valid using this method since it is on the exact same machine.