WinXP Activation Help.

[IceT]

I purchased my WinXP Pro from my school and got it activated several times. The reason for that is that I often format my PC (i.e. every 2 to 3 months) due to amount of junks in my hard drive.

However tonight, I plugged in a new soundcard, Windows asks me to re-activate my copy of XP, so I did but MS says my CD key has been activated too many times.

Now am I out of luck for this?

Pls. advise! Thank you.

.IceT

 

[mikecel79]

Have you tried calling Microsoft yet? You should be able to call the number it gives you and get this fixed over the phone. Normally it's a 3-5 minute call.

 

[Fiveohhh]

It should give you a number. Call it up and they should issue you an activation code.

 

[IceT]

I figure out that now it's a bit too late in the nite to call up MS. Hopefully they can do something about this, otherwise, I would waste my money buying a legit copy of XP.

 

[n0cmonkey]

You call them, they might ask you what you did, you tell them you got a new soundcard, they give you a number or something, you get activated. It's simple, and you shouldn't have to waste any money. 🙂

 

[MrChad]

I've never had to call them up myself, but many people on this forum have had the same experience you are having now, and the process is really painless.

I'm not certain, but Microsoft's activation phone center should be open 24/7 in the U.S.

 

[stash]

Yes, you can call the activation number 24/7

 

[FreakyGuy]

I've called them at 3 am once and didn't have any problem. They are open 24/7.

 

[islandtechengineers]

I never thought something such as a sound card would be considered a major product to impact the XP installation = causing a user to re-activate. I've swapped out a couple of sound cards and nevere had to re-activate. I can understand swapping a proc and definately the entire mobo. what sound card setup did you swap ?

 

[Gerbil333]

Originally posted by: islandtechengineers
I never thought something such as a sound card would be considered a major product to impact the XP installation = causing a user to re-activate. I've swapped out a couple of sound cards and nevere had to re-activate. I can understand swapping a proc and definately the entire mobo. what sound card setup did you swap ?

It's cumulative...a sound card alone won't do it, but if you change say the network card, video card, optical drive, sound card, etc (basically change many, many devices over the life of an install of Windows), it will ask to be reactivated.