How many times can I activate XP? As its says I have reached the limit!?

spinstorm

spinstorm

spinstorm

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I have had to reinstall XP Pro several times for lots of reasons, ie, wanting to delete all the rubbish on my pc, bad drivers, or hardware issues/changes etc, and today I reinstalled it and it is telling me I have reached my limit!

It is an OEM version BUT It is on exactly the same PC as before - this last time I have installed it as a virtual PC on vista but there is every chance I may need to put it back as my main OS again or may wish to activate it on the virtual PC so I can get all the updates!

Would a virtual PC count as using it on a second PC? even though its on the same actual physical PC? And what would the situation be should I want to go back to XP pro as the main OS? as I said!

So is there a limit to it? or will it work over the phone? What do I do?
 
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VPC = different PC.

IIRC you can download (for free) an Image of WinXP Pro from microsoft.com with its own CD key. I'm not sure if this is still available.
 
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Phone up Microsoft tech support and they will sort it out for you, my brother has had to do this, I dont know any details about what happens though.
 
Mine says this when I try to activate it, even though I have never changed any hardware on it, I ring the free phone number and get a new code. Each time I ring the IQ of the Indian operater gets lower and lower (nearly into negative figures now) and they give you a new code. Got a stress ball handy?
 
fumbles said:
IIRC you can download (for free) an Image of WinXP Pro from microsoft.com with its own CD key. I'm not sure if this is still available.
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Eh? Why on earth would MS do that?
fumbles said:
VPC = different PC.
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That is true however, it all comes down to the wording of the OEM licence. The licence states that you can't transfer to a different machine and therefore a virtual 'machine' counts.

Burnsy
 
You can activate XP over the internet 5 times, after that you need to phone up MS and get a new code :) It's just a simple case of reading out the numbers and typing in the new codes :D
 
Are we saying I should deny that I ever installed it on a VPC? Just that I had to reinstall it? (or risk an irritating MS person not helping me if I am honest?).

And therefore logically I should not try to activate the VPC version again!
 
burnsy2023 said:
Eh? Why on earth would MS do that?


That is true however, it all comes down to the wording of the OEM licence. The licence states that you can't transfer to a different machine and therefore a virtual 'machine' counts.

Burnsy
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Well you keep telling us that the motherboard is the machine :rolleyes:
 
Meatball said:
You can activate XP over the internet 5 times, after that you need to phone up MS and get a new code :) It's just a simple case of reading out the numbers and typing in the new codes :D
Click to expand...

I found it extremely hard typing in a 20odd digit number when I couldn't understand the person on the other end through there accent.
 
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