re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 9:27 pm Windows XP Annoyances Discussion Forum Posted by Dan Sarandrea, MCSE (7132 messages posted) Your Lenovo laptop will always be licensed to run the Microsoft Windows that is described on the Certificate of Authenticity (CoA). As Crash noted, you will have trouble trying to activate an XP Pro installation with an XP Home Product Key. Your best option is to order the Recovery CDs from Lenovo. If no joy there, try www.restoredisks.com. If still no joy, borrow a genuine, hologrammed systembuilder/OEM XP CD that matches the edition of XP as described on your CoA from a friend (DO NOT use an iso from bit torrent---guaranteed to be chock full of rootkits and viruses). Install XP using this genuine CD and the Product Key from YOUR CoA, and NOT from the CoA that came with the CD. Installation will complete normally. To activate, use the telephonic method rather than the automatic online method. Written in response to: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (Evan: Sunday, September 21, 2008 at 8:53 am) Responses to this message: re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (Evan: Tuesday, September 23, 2008 at 10:41 pm) All messages in this thread [show all] Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (Evan: Sun, Sep 21, 2008, 8:53 am) re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (Steve: Sun, Sep 21, 2008, 9:28 am) re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (geek9pm: Sun, Sep 21, 2008, 5:00 pm) re: Comment about WinXP OEM CD (Kiwi: Mon, Sep 22, 2008, 8:11 am) re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (Rich Kurtz: Sun, Sep 21, 2008, 7:07 pm) re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (Chuck: Sun, Sep 21, 2008, 9:33 pm) re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (appleoddity: Mon, Sep 22, 2008, 11:43 am) re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (Crash Override: Tue, Sep 23, 2008, 6:37 am) re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (Dan Sarandrea, MCSE: Tue, Sep 23, 2008, 9:27 pm) re: Question about 'How do I skip the Product Activation in Windows XP?' (Evan: Tue, Sep 23, 2008, 10:41 pm) Reply or follow-up to this message Search this forum Start a new thread on a different subject Report abuse of the forum Return to the Windows XP Discussion Forum