re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?'
Sunday, February 20, 2005 at 6:50 pm
Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum
Posted by Dan Sarandrea, MCSE
(7132 messages posted)
When installed, XP polls a selection of the hardware of the system it's installed
on and generates a "magic number."
Every now and then after that point, it recalculates the magic number using the hardware
that it finds. If the hardware changes enough, the magic number won't be within
certain tolerances, and XP is designed to announce to you that it thinks something
is wrong and that it wants to be activated again.
Then you have to allow XP to phone home to check in with the activation servers that
keep track of each activated Product Key. If the Product Key is flagged in some
manner, such as too many reactivations in too short a time, the automatic process
will be halted and you will be instructed to phone home to Redmond so you can plead
your case, as it were, to the activation reps on the phone.
My understanding is that the vast majority of people who have to phone in to plead
their case are immediately successful, and the reps either issue a new Product Key
or reset their existing Product Key.
BTW, Symantec's execution of their Product Activation system is almost identical
to Microsoft's.
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