Lowest XP Home Price?

[dcr]

Hello,

I reformatted one of my PC's that had Windows XP Home on it. I reinstalled the OS, and it says that I have activated this copy too many times.

Obviously, I must have missed a step prior to reformatting to prevent this, so now I probably have to buy another friggin' copy of XP.

What is the lowest price you guys have found? I think $80 is where I am at.

 

[cleverhandle]

Did you try, you know, calling Microsoft like the activation screen suggests?

 

[dcr]

No, I didn't call.

Unless I read the message wrong, it told me that I needed a new key, so I figured I would buy one.

 

[Smilin]

Are you running this copy on a single machine?
Is it a legitimate copy of Windows?

If you answered yes to both of these, then do NOT buy a new copy of Windows. Just call MS and they will take care of you.

 

[dcr]

The copy is legit.

The only thing I can't remember is if I put that on another box of mine at some point in the past. I am always giving extra boxes away to my parents, friends, etc, so it is highly possible that I may have had it on one of them and forgot about it.

Can MS tell me that?

 

[Kaido]

You can get an XP Pro Upgrade disc for $80 from JourneyEd if you're a student:

http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?T1=55481723Y199

 

[Lord Evermore]

MS can't (or at least won't) tell you whether a particular key is currently being used on another machine, they can only tell you whether it's been activated. They only allow it to be activated a certain number of times within a certain time period (pretty much once every 4 months, and then they reset the counter so that people don't always have to call when they reformat).

If you have it installed on another machine, then you should buy another license. However if you call Microsoft to activate over the phone, it'll probably be allowed if you just tell them you reformatted, but of course you'd violating the license and lying about how many machines it's on. Frankly building machines for several friends and installing Windows on them with your own license over and over is just flat out obviously violating the license and even the morals for most people who think Windows is overpriced.

If you actually have an OEM copy, this may also be related to the problem, as Microsoft has been making it not possible to activate over the Internet for licenses that came with XP pre-installed on OEM machines.

 

[Lord Evermore]

Originally posted by: Kaido
You can get an XP Pro Upgrade disc for $80 from JourneyEd if you're a student:

http://www.journeyed.com/itemDetail.asp?T1=55481723Y199

Technically if he's a student at certain institutions only. Academic licensing is only supposed to be available through the institution, not resellers.

It's also an upgrade version, which means to comply with the license he needs to have a valid previous license that is NOT currently in use on any other machine.

Plus the academic license I believe expires once you're no longer a student.

XP Pro OEM from Newegg or others doesn't cost a hell of a lot more than that upgrade price either.