When you install Windows XP you must activate the program within 30 days. That’s fine, but there is a down side. You are only allowed to activate the same copy of Windows a certain number of times. This is a disaster for me, as I am constantly formatting my computer in order to keep it squeaky clean and updated. I was not impressed when Microsoft gave me a message saying that I had exceeded the limit on activation for my particular copy.. Not happy Jan.. After all I had paid a lot of money for the program.
I could probably solve the problem by phoning Microsoft, but I like my little trick much better. The reason is once you have to ring up Microsoft for a particular Windows activation, you will have to do it every time thereafter. They let you activate it, but its a pain.
When Windows Xp is activated it creates a file called wpa.dbl and it can be found in the system32 folder. C:\WINDOWS\system32. This file stores information about your computer and it hardware configuration. If it thinks windows is still installed on the same computer you will have no problem. It takes note of the following 10 items:
- Display Adapter
- SCSI Adapter
- The motherboard
- Network Adapter and its MAC Address
- RAM Amount
- Processor Type
- Processor Serial Number
- Hard Drive Device
- Hard Drive Volume Serial Number (VSN)
- CD-ROM / CD-RW / DVD-ROM
You need to have 7 items in the list above to be the same as when you first activated Windows. So if you only upgraded your hard drive you will be fine.
- Double-click My Computer
- Double-click on the “C” drive
- Go to the C:\Windows\System32 folder (you may have to click on the link that says “Show The contents of this folder”)
- Find the files “wpa.dbl” and “wpa.bak” and copy them to a safe location. You can copy them on a floppy drive or burn it onto a CD or DVD.
- After you have reinstalled Windows XP on your reformatted hard drive, click “No” when asked if you want to go ahead and go through the activation process
- Reboot your computer into SafeMode (you can either press F8 as Windows is booting up to see the Windows Advanced Options menu and select SAFEBOOT_OPTION=Minimal or follow the instructions in Starting Windows XP in SafeMode
- Double-click My Computer
- Double-click on the “C” drive
- Go to the C:\Windows\System32 folder (you may have to click on the link that says “Show The contents of this folder”)
- Find the file “wpa.dbl” and “wpa.bak” (if it exists) and rename them to “wpadbl.new” and “wpabak.new”
- Copy your original “wpa.dbl” and “wpa.bak” files from your floppy disk, CD or DVD into the C:\Windows\System32 folder
- Restart your system (if you followed the directions in Starting Windows XP in SafeMode you may need to go back into MSCONFIG to turn off booting into SafeMode)
Note:
- Your wpa.dbl file might not work on another computer. However if you like tinkering with files you should give it a go.
- Some copies of Windows have had their activation files tampered with, therefore these files may not exist or may be incomplete.
