windows xp home activation?

Question

hi there.

my sister bought a compac pc it came with windows xp home pre installed, and no disks, i down loaded a key viewer from cool beans and i found that the key on her pc was not the same as on the side of her base unit. so i take it that her pre installeed copy of xp has already been activated, because it is not asking to be activated and there is no product activation on the menu.

so i have a genuine xp home disk from hp, and was wondering if i could use her code that is no being used on my machine?

this cant be illegal? right?

Answer 1

I agree with above. Also the key on the bottom of your system is there if you need to reinstall the OS. The repair is located on another parition of your HD. That's how Compaq and HP have been doing it for years now. If you really want the CDs call them and ask for them. They will cahrge you approx $30 to get them. But they are good to have if the DH completly dies.

Answer 2

You could try it, but the keys are usually specific to the version of Windows (i.e. OEM version keys won't work with retail, the SP1 keys won't work with original release etc.) It's also possible that the key viewer might have gotten it wrong, I've never heard of a factory pre-install from a major manufacturer like Compaq not matching the case info, but I suppose it's possible.

If you have a genuine xp home disk from HP, the key for that should be somewhere on the outside of the HP case. Also, keep in mind if her machine is several months old, chances are the code might be usable again (you can activate a few times before it stops working, people sometimes have hard disk failure, etc)

Of course if you use the code & she needs to re-install shortly thereafter due to virus corruption/hardware problems, you're up the creek.

Answer 3

contacting microsoft isn't that painful. If what you assert is genuine, and the OS is expert, they're going to easily examine off the activation cose to you over the telephone and not even value you for it. the whole technique would be over in under 5 minutes. The worst portion of the approach for me grow to be attempting to comprehend the guy from India's broken english, yet I have been given a laugh whilst he claimed his call grow to be Ralph.

Answer 4

you can install windows xp on up to three computers with the same product key and activate them to

Answer 5

i agree with c man, but if your sisters pc goes **** up she could use the code that is shown on the key viewer

Answer 6

You had best go to Microsoft and read the EULA before you grab that "unused" code.