Reinstalling XP

[spookthehamster]

I'm reinstalling XP after my fling with Vista RC1. The install was all going great, until I realised I left the certificate of authenticity at home for safe keeping while I'm at uni. I called my mum, who looked around where I thought it should be but she can't find it.

I poked around the CD on my other computer and found a file called "unattend.txt" which has a product key in, I assumed that would be the right one, but it doesn't work at all.

Is there a way to find my key without going home and turning the house inside out?

edit: It's an XP Home OEM disc and an iMac, I've installed it in the past and then upgraded to Vista RC1. When I removed Vista I simply repartitioned the drive so it was 100% OS X.

 

[Double Trouble]

The unattend.txt file does indeed contain your key, you should be able to use it to install again.... unless you have an "upgrade" version of windows, in which case it will ask you to insert the previous version of windows. When you say it "doesn't work at all", what do you mean? What do you try and what happens?

 

[spookthehamster]

tagej I put the key from the unattend.txt file in, and I get a window saying I've entered an invalid key.

 

[Double Trouble]

Hmmm... that should work. If they key were failing activation, you would just have to call MS to activate, but you're saying it's getting flagged as in invalid key during the installation routine. This is going to sound rather stupid, but I have to ask (sorry!).... are you absolutely certain you are entering the key exactly as it is in the unnatend.txt file?

I've run into a similar situation before, another thing you can do is download an XP keygen off the 'net, generate an OEM home key, and use it to install the OS. Then, use a utility (search for it on google) to update your (bogus) key to your legit key, and voila.

 

[spookthehamster]

I copied it down twice to make sure, it's definitely the same. I wanted to avoid illegitimate keys if I could, but I might have to go down that route.

 

[Double Trouble]

Yep, it's a hassle, but there's nothing wrong with temporarily using another key to get it installed and then reverting to the legitimate key......

 

[spookthehamster]

I found a working key by putting the key in my unattended.txt file into Google. It seems the key in my file is for XP Home Retail, rather than OEM. Hopefully I won't be WGA'd out of existence before I change it to my key.

 

[spookthehamster]

Ok, still no luck.

Microsoft obviously won't help (it's OEM), and the original seller won't help. I have 10 days until Windows dies on me. Looks like I'm SOL.