Okay, someone explain this to me?

[pentium]

I decided to switch the case on my parents computer as well as add in a SCSI card. Nothing more and nothing less.
However when I rebooted, I was told that a "significant hardware change" had occured and the Windows XP key had to be reentered.
Uh....okay. Why is Windows so picky about a freaking AHA-2940.
Now my dad is on my ass and I'm pissed. what the hell happened?

[shadow]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

Over the lifetime of the machine. Enough hardware has changed and Windows needs to be reactivated because it thinks that the machine has been changed.

If you have done other upgrades in the past, the SCSI card may have 'pushed' it over the 'significant hardware change' line.

I don't know what the activation rules are with Windows XP.
However it looks like you need to call Microsoft to get it re-activated. Hopefully your version of Windows XP is not an OEM one, there are greater activation restrictions on OEM versions than with Retail versions of Windows XP.

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

Agree.
XP kills itself over too many changes.

Supposedly it's Copy Protection but I think the real reason is Planned Obsolescence.
All MS had to do to kill XP completely is stop reactivating.
They can pretty much choose to do that whenever they want.
.

[pentium]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

Well it's not OEM so we got it working again (and we had to re register Office XP as well :/ ) so it looks like nothing too serious.

[Fatal0E]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

I started putting pirate copies of windows on my laptops. They have licenses on them, but it annoys the piss out of me that I have to call microsoft every time I reformat them. Pirate copy fixed that right up!

[EGuevarae]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

I started putting pirate copies of windows on my laptops. They have licenses on them, but it annoys the piss out of me that I have to call microsoft every time I reformat them. Pirate copy fixed that right up!

While not a recommended thing to do, I did it in the past for one simple reason : if you try to activate a copy of Win XP in Mexico, they ask you even for the trouser color you are wearing to see if it corresponds with the astrological plane that Bill Gates think that has to be on the sky at that specific moment and if the global warming is in an acceptable condition, not to mention that they ask why so many (and which) hardware changes in one system (common thing there as of crappy motherboards and even crappier PSU units). I guess they do that because of piracy there, but the only thing they accomplish with this is to make builders install pirate copies because the re-activation process is a PITA !!!!!
I don't know how they are handling Vista now (as far as I know, they try to avoid it on custom machines) ...

[ratdude747]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

my solution:

skip windows, go linux or bsd, maybe beos

ever since 2000/me, microsoft has kepth the backdoor open on their products.

if you must do windows, do it legally, that way you have nothing to worry about

[EGuevarae]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

my solution:
skip windows, go linux or bsd, maybe beos

You forgot the key word in my post : * Mexico *.
Linux is almost as rare as Macs are in the vast majority of places around there (so far, in Mexicali, where I used to live, Macs were confined to the press department of the two local newspapers, one gov. area and two big factories, one of which closed recently).

As for going legal, I am legal (my own rigs have all XP licenses), but if you are going to change something in your rig every three or four months (yes, I know you get what you pay for, but at an exchange rate of 14x1 against the dollar and with a weekly average payment of 800 pesos, you really are short on options ...) Microsoft thinks that you are installing a opy of a legit software every other month. That in addition to the real piracy : if you must work two or three weeks at least to get a legal copy of M$ Windows, you end up paying 50 pesos instead of 2000+ for a burned copy. They even advertise the copies in the newspaper. That is the situation there ...

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

It's human nature to assume the whole world is the same as one's own.

[ratdude747]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

linux=internet

i thought you could get high speed somewhere out there

if not so, sorry about that

[Krankshaft]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

Agree.
All MS had to do to kill XP completely is stop reactivating.
They can pretty much choose to do that whenever they want.
.

Not if you get your hands on a volume licence .

I agree though as soon as this XP bs was announced planned obsolesence was at the front of my mind.

M$ is just pissed that people won't jump whenever they release a new OS anymore.

I see MS pulled their your a dumbass that doesn't know anything buy Vista campaign. Vista just like Windows ME one giant train wreck.

Guess their too busy releasing that god awful Bing search engine. You couldn't beat Google then MS and you certainly can't now. DEAL WITH IT!!!

[370forlife]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

Not if you get your hands on a volume licence .

I agree though as soon as this XP bs was announced planned obsolesence was at the front of my mind.

M$ is just pissed that people won't jump whenever they release a new OS anymore.

I see MS pulled their your a dumbass that doesn't know anything buy Vista campaign. Vista just like Windows ME once giant train wreck.

I can get unlimited free volume licences for free for any version of windows, legal too.

My brother has a MSDN account through his work, unlimited keys and downloads.

[EGuevarae]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

linux=internet

i thought you could get high speed somewhere out there

if not so, sorry about that

You can. But if you can get it, it is almost of no use. The schools, gov, workpaces, banks and all the vast majority of computers there use some sort of Windows OS. Linux is free, less hardware demanding and most of all, more secure, but M$ has almost all the market. Even myself use Windows only OSes. I've installed Linux on a couple of boxes one time or another, and ended up removing them. I am so used to the MS standard regarding configs, control panel settings and the like, that I don't feel comfortable in a Linux box.
Someone around here suggested ubuntu,fedora or FreeBSD as a starting point, and honestly I have downloaded ubuntu and fedora, and even burned the ISOs, but that is as far as I've gone on that.
It is a shame, I know, and I know too that sooner or later I will make the transition, but not yet .....

[PCBONEZ]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

Whole countries have 'had it' with M$ and their bull shit.

http://profy.com/2008/12/19/microsof...ux-supporters/

In several smaller countries it's actually now illegal to use Windows on a school computer.

Cost concerns are causing some schools here to switch to Linux as well.

The smarter kinds in todays generation are more likely to 'get' Linux and those are the ones most likely to be next generations business owners and corporate execs.

M$ and their attitude is making a really big bed for M$ to lay in.

.

Learning Ubuntu is no harder than learning Win95/98 the first time around.
Set up a dual boot and play with it.

.

[willawake]

Re: Okay, someone explain this to me?

yeah in russia there was so much pirate software in the schools and to become legit was too much money so they changed to linux

in some south american countries, i forget which one(s) they hate america so they use linux

i do believe that if they taught linux early in school and the kids used it at home then it would be great for them.

i use linux on servers and webserver (vps with cpanel). i dont know much. things like webmin and cpanel make it possible.

i dont have so much time for computers any more. at home i use xp cos i wanna do my work, browse the web and edit my pics and publish on the web. i am not really interested in messing around with linux just for the sake of it. in the office forget it, they struggle to use xp and office