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Ultimate Member
Changing XP HOME Key??
Is there any way to change an XP Home Product Key? For obscure reasons I need to put the ‘right’ key back on a machine that is now using another key. (I have separate legit copies of XP Home for both machines.) The techniques for XP Pro do not apply to XP Home as the registry stores the WPA info differently. If I do the complete re-install I also will have to face re-installation of about 20 separate apps, some of which require an annoying ‘re-activaton’ process.
ALL of my apps are legit copies and I really hate this activation nonsense – especially when it means long distance calls to Australia and the US from Fiji (‘cause we have sky high telephone charges over here – NO free calls from here).
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Ultimate Member
I believe I have a solution for you but not sure I can post it here. Drop me an email.
cjtyler@tctc.com
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EX Moderator-May He Rest in Peace
Sorry but we can't tell you how to change keys on a public board this would surely lead to misuse and get sysopt in trouble and you don't want to do that.
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Ultimate Member
Originally posted by rangeral
Sorry but we can't tell you how to change keys on a public board this would surely lead to misuse and get sysopt in trouble and you don't want to do that.
Sorry. I don;t want to cause trouble for SysOpt.
However, I really DO have legit purchased copies for every machine and I just want to fix an installation mistake. If anyone has a fix I'd appreciate a PM. (Please be aware the XP HOME is NOT like XP Pro and tinkering with the registry value for oobe timer is NOT the answer.)
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Mod w/ an attitude
If you insert the XP CD in the drive while within XP it will ask you to reinstall.
Do a full reinstall entering the new key when asked.
All apps and data will remian as installed and should work perfectly.
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EX Moderator-May He Rest in Peace
Thats good to know, haven't messed with that aspect of it yet.
There you go.
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Ultimate Member
I'll go try it! I also have XP Pro and thought I'd use that but when I boot from the CD it says that if I install over the old OS (rather than to a new partition) it will delete the old OS (XP Home) including the My Documents folder AND ALL OF THE INSTALLED APPS.
Thanks Sterling!
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I'll go try it! I also have XP Pro and thought I'd use that but when I boot from the CD it says that if I install over the old OS (rather than to a new partition) it will delete the old OS (XP Home) including the My Documents folder AND ALL OF THE INSTALLED APPS.
If you do not want to lose your files you have to use the xp home cd you originally used otherwise it is considered an upgrade to go from home to pro and this would account for the removal of your old files.
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Ultimate Member
Well, I now have the right numbers on the right computers. Of course, since I used a removable drive and replicated the OS install it decided I needed to call Microsoft (in Australia, at my expense) to re-activate. Oh well, at least they are polite down here. Thanks for the advice!
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Senior Member
If doing it "by the book" (LAW), you have two options:
Sysprep without SID Generation, or
OS Licence Modifier
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Mod w/ an attitude
Hmmmm, bahama llama
I guess I better not tell the HP laptop that I have what you just said. I upgraded from XP Home to XP Pro without losing my data or my installed apps.
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Ultimate Member
Sterling! So you can do the very same thing I just did (XP Home CD install from within XP Home - entering the new key) with XP Pro????? All I tried was booting from the Pro CD (where it said "I will eat your documents AND your apps!!!). Hmmmm, I think I wil try upgrading my main XP Home box to XP Pro that way.
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Mod w/ an attitude
I guess it really depends on which type of XP CD you have.
I have a full install which also does upgrades. An upgrade CD does NOT to full installs.
An upgrade does not delete your data or installed apps. It upgrades the OS and keeps your apps operational.
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Ultimate Member
I have the ful CDs for Home (3 copies) and Pro (1 copy). (As an ex-developer I am slightly anal about BUYING any software I use or intend to use.) I do find it interesting that if you boot from the CD it does not even mention the "upgrade" path - even if you already have XP installed. Only if you use the CD from within XP do you see the upgrade option. Of course, that does sound like Microsoft.
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