Windows Product Activation.

[Bistro]

Alright,

I have a really old HP mainly because I don't feel like tossing money into a new one and I fell out of the technical feild for a couple years after college. So, this HP is a 533w model. Came out six years ago. I've formatted and re-installed XP atleast half a dozen times, but, for not having my own XP disk I always used the recovery cd that came with my HP... All seven of them... Yes, seven. So essentially if you have to much crap on your computer and want to just start clean it's pointless because you get seven cd's worth of crap installed.

But then I wind up with gigs of sensative material, primarily home made industrial music in my case, so I just let it go and go and go until my PC is dirt slow. So one day I'm giving a kid ten bucks for all the parts he had in his car and I get two working hard drives, a 10gig and a 40gig so I think righteous, I'll back my stuff off my 60gig onto the 40gig and use an XP disk to install windows on the 10 gig and use that as a system drive only. Worked like a charm, new(ish) pc feel again.

Then, I encountered Windows Product Activation. Which I don't ever recall having to go through using the HP recovery cd's. And while still having 27 days left to register it decides to lock up my computer until I satisfy the corporate fat cats. So I had some problems registering using the code on my computer and two codes from other computers as well, wich I have learned why other codes wouldn't work, I believe the answer is B: hardware, final choice.

So anyway, I researched this and found some interesting things. I'll list them.

*Microsoft requires new installations of XP to be verified either by phone or internet, your basically saying "Hey, I'm using this. K?" I find it degrading the way they are going about their whole anti-piracy fiasco. But whatever works, theres always a way.

*There is a file in the windows system32 folder called wpa.dbl which, you can figure out what the acronym here is. This file contains your product key for activating windows. The forumla for these numbers are derived from individual components in your computers hardware.

*Changing three or more hardware devices in your computer will cause windows to delete this wpa.dbl file causing you to have to re authenticate your windows installation with microsoft. Same thing if you format, as in my case.

*If you intend to format your computer and reinstall windows XP you can prior to formating copy or burn said file (and wpa.bak if present) to a CD or flash drive. This will only work on the same computer that you got the file.

I read about this on various websites including some german (in english) site called tecchannel. Anyway, in the instructions it said WHEN re-installing XP and it asks if you want to activate your product to click no, reboot into safe mode (by tapping f8 to get to that option) go into the windows system32 folder and then to backup or simply rename the existing wpa.dbl to say wpadbl.new and then copying the one you saved before formating to this folder.

Anyway, the way I did it was after windows had already locked me out when not in safe mode and I wound up calling with the key on the side of my computer and being over the phone issued a new activation sequence. But what a pain in the *** that is. So what now, when re-installing XP make sure "Call Microsoft" is on the check list? Hopefully if I had read these instructions before formatting and followed the backing up of the wpa.dbl this could have been finagled properly and this issue avoided all together. That is why I am posting this as I didn't see any other topics with this subject, if this already has been done in another thread feel free to delete this one, I'm sure the other one would be better,

Last, does anyone have any ideas why my old file didn't work for me?
*Was it because I waited until windows locked me out?
*Because it was on a different hard drive than the 10 gig I put windows onto?
I dunno, just looking for answers and anything else I can feed into my brain on this issue. If I'm wrong or have forgotten to add anything feel free to correct me and if desired use the "nana-na-nana" emoticon

[Niclo Iste]

If you reinstall so many times it won't be able to register anymore via the internet. When it tries to you will get prompted to call Microsoft. Since this is a license distributed by HP the key will not work with Microsoft and they will tell you that you need to talk to HP to get this validated. Sorry but unfortunately that's all the information that I have at the moment.
Just a fore-warning we can't supply you with hacks or cracks around the validation. We can however try to figure out what's causing your issue and provide solutions as to what is causing it.