[SmellyOne]

I just formated my hdd and reinstalled windows. When it booted up i installed my wireless card driver and successfully activated windows. Then i installed my graphics card driver, my motherboard driver and my soundcard driver and then restarted my computer.

When it booted up a message appeared that said "Significant changes have occured with your hardware and Windows will need to be reactivated with in the next 3 days." (thats not exactly what it said but its pretty close). So then i opened the activation utility and attempted to activate windows.

This time it said "According to our records, the number of times you can activate Windows with this product key has been exceeded. Please enter a different product key, and then click retry."(that is exactly what it says).

So does this mean that since i installed some drivers i have to buy a new copy of windows? This is about the 4th time ive reinstalled this copy of windows and i have never had this problem. So i guess i only have 3 days till i have to buy a new copy of windows.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

[Mak213]

There should be a 800 number you can call. Give M$ a call and tell then you had to format and re-install. HDD issues. Tell them you already activated it but after doing some updates and driver isntalls it prompted and gave you that error message again. They will give you the code needed to activate Windows.

[SmellyOne]

thanks for info, ill use it for future reference. The funny thing is, i tried activating again today and it worked! Ha

[EricB]

Originally Posted by Smellypuce

thanks for info, ill use it for future reference. The funny thing is, i tried activating again today and it worked! Ha

that happens sometimes

[Alvin.C]

Hello,

They now ask you automated questions on the Microsoft Product Activation phone line when records show that you've activated too many times.

Questions include: 'Is this the first time you've activated Windows XP?', 'On how many computers is this copy of Windows XP installed on? One, two or more?' and 'Did you change the motherboard?'.

I've lost count of the amount of times I've had to go through the lengthy and annoying process of activating Windows XP via telephone.

[TheEnd187]

just use the f'n winpatcher

[EricB]

media center is more forgiving. I activated it 20 times before they made me call. the next 3 times after that it went through