Petar Petrov :: home blog

I just had to enjoy a live-session with one of the customer representative of Microsoft© The Netherlands. It was caused by my WinXP TabletEdition reinstallation on my HP© laptop. I do confess, I’ve never had an official Windows before it was forced on me by HP. So I had also been blessed with ignorance about the so-called activation process. Just another move from M$ to hit the software piracy  of their products, since  many critical updates and  handy software can be downloaded from  microsoft.com only after  a  WindowsGenuine™  validation tool. The formal doesn’t even operate on machines without activated Win OS. Usually, activation can be done via the Internet. Besides the fact I had used the CD-KEY from the sticker on the back of my laptop, for some reason I got an invalid key message when trying to activate my copy online .So I had to call a toll-free number and supply my installation ID , which is not the CD-KEY but a generated yet another key specific to your machine,windows version and cd-key, I might speculate.

Well, it wasn’t that paintfull to spell and copy-back 24digit number and it was quite fast. However, I do not intend to repeat this exercise, except for my own amusement >:} evil.

Here is what you need to do to avoid any future WinXP Re-Activations. NO MORE WINDOWS RE ACTIVATION!!!

Just follow the steps:

1. After initial activation you must have a the following file present on you system: C:\WINDOWS\system32\wpa.dbl
2. Make a copy on flash/floppy/netDrive etc.
3. After a fresh-new reinstallation of WinXP, decline the call for activation on finish. Reboot the PC, press F8 to go into start-up menu of XP and choose Safe-Mode.
4. Go to ‘C:\WINDOWS\system32\’ and make a backup copy of wpa.dbl → wpa.dbl.bak
5. Copy (overwrite) the wpa.dbl file with the version you saved diligently in step-1

voala…

Please keep in mind this trick will ONLY work on exact configuration of hardware/windows/cdkey used. Therefore, DO NOT expect to run around in the hood and fixing everyone’s PC :-]

Last Note! Use this procedure under extreme prejudice if you do not feel competent enough. After all, one toll-free call fix it too.

~ by spesho on May 28, 2008.