Xp No Activation Icon

The Show Desktop icon in XP missing : create a Show Desktop.scf file with the following content .

How Microsoft Windows Product Activation MPA/WPA works in Windows XP Vista, Win7, Win8 and Win10.

You can rein stall Win dows XP with out both er ing with reac ti va tion, if you have acti vated the prod uct before.

A topic of fre quent dis cus sion and con cern in many online forums is Microsoft s Prod uct Acti va tion, which is not lim ited to Win dows XP, it is now required for many Microsoft prod ucts on a per sonal level, MS Office for instance.

Isn t it galling that we need to con tact Microsoft for per mis sion if we choose to rein stall a prod uct that we already legally own and use, and have stamped so before.. This method of copy right pro tec tion has not exactly rol licked among cus tomers. Well, no wor ries, there is a trick for get ting around prod uct acti va tion for Win dows XP when reinstalling.

If you have suc cess fully acti vated the OS already, and if you are rein stalling it on the exist ing hard ware, this trick should do just fine. Here it is:

Copy the file c:windowssystem32wpa.dbl to a floppy.

Rein stall Win dows XP.

Boot to a DOS disk if you are using FAT, or to the Recov ery Con sole if using NTFS.

Copy the file from the first step above back to c:windowssystem32.

That s it   because all of your hard ware is the same as before, your copy of WinXP is still valid accord ing to the pre vi ous activation.

That s it. That should do it. For some really cool instruc tions while rein stall Win dows XP, read Mark s dandy but must-read instruc tions Install Win dows XP in 5 hours or less.

When you fix as many computers as I do, you come across some strange things.

When reinstalling Windows, you ll almost always get a message at first log on that you need to activate windows within 30 days or else. Following that you ll have to verify that windows is genuine. But you have to do it in that order. So on Windows XP, there s typically, and almost always first to show up, a blue star icon in the system tray – letting you know that you need to verify if windows is genuine.

Ya well, then you double click it, the genuine test will fail if windows is first not activated. Am I repeating myself. You get the point. For some reason, if you wait, the activate icon will appear. It looks like a set of keys. Sometimes, like in the image, the activate icon will be the system tray. Sometimes it will be in Start All Programs Activate Windows. But sometimes, there will be no option to activate windows at all. THIS is when it gets interesting. In the years I have been working on computers, I have only seen this happen once – and that was today. Mind you, you can t really finish the computer setup without activating. Windows updates won t work – which is key in the Windows world, especially if you need service pack 3, which is almost always the case. But I found the fix, for this instance, and it was pretty easy.

FIX

Fire up a command prompt Start Run type cmd and hit enter. Change the directory to C: if not there by default. Then change the directory to this path: or type in the following cd windowssystem32oobe. Type msoobe.exe /A and hit enter.

It looks like this: C:WINDOWSsystem32oobe msoobe.exe /A

Amazing. The activate windows prompt pops up. Proceed as normal to activate windows.

I found this buried in a small archive forum and wanted to bring it to light for those out there experiencing the same issue.

• Reinstall Windows XP without product activation. You can rein stall Win dows XP with out both er ing with reac ti va tion, if you have acti vated the prod.
• This article shows how to bypass Windows XP product activation in case you have got 30 days left for activation and even in the case the limit has expired.
• Having rebuilt, tested, and reloaded hundreds of computers, I ve become keenly aware of one of the unavoidable speedbumps during setup -- Windows XP s product activation.
• In Windows XP SP3 system, no matter it s been upgraded from Windows XP with no service pack, SP1 or SP2 with XP SP3 standalone update package or.

Reinstall Windows XP without product activation | Miscellaneous

Due to piracy and other forms of unauthorized use, users cannot always be sure that they have a genuine copy of Windows XP. The goal of product activation is to.