Question about not being able to activate Windows XP
 

(no Im not asking for any hacking or cracking or anything)

Recently I aquired a computer from a friend along with an XP upgrade (home edition) It upgraded and activated just fine.

Well it was an old computer (one of the first E-machines) and when work upgraded some of our computers they gave me a compaq ipaq, with the condition that I wipe out the hard drive (which was running Windows 2K)which was giving me errors right and left anyway, hence the replacing of it.

Well me being the smart person I am (insert sarcastic face) I wiped it out and installed windows 98 so that I could upgrade to XP (since all I had was the upgrade version)

Low and behold when I go to activate it, it tells me the product key has been used its maximum allowable times.

Can anyone tell me whats going to happen in 30 days when it hasnt been activated? Is it going to lock me out of the computer? Im not sure what to do at this point, other than try to contact microsoft and tell them the situation and that the pc I put it on 3 weeks ago isnt being used.

Call Microsoft, and say that you reformatted the computer and you need to activate again. They will give allow you to then activate Windows.

MS should be fine with it, just explain everything and you should be going again in no time.

MS allows a certain number of activations in a month, this happenned to me, they clear out their servers every 30 days, and i waited for over 30 days and then tried to reactivate it again, it worked.

Even if you have to call them, it's not like they really care why you need to activate it.

I mean, even if you concoct the craziest, most ridiculous story you can think of, it's not like these guys haven't heard it dozen times already today.

Well I called them up....and it was really easy....they activated it for me with no problems at all!!! Thanks guys