PCA Forums

I have a legal version of xp but I always find myself having to do a full install (too much junk on my computer, upgrading, stuff like that) but that means having to activate all the time, and im getting tired of calling them and im betting there not gonna keep giving me cd-keys soon. I just tried that wpa file thing, and I loaded it onto the computer in place of the old one and restarted and as soon as the computer booted up it said i have to activate now! So I reformated again and here I am with 30 days left and I guess that wpa file thing didn't work or did I do it wrong? If I made a Ghost of my hard drive right now with norton ghost and I had it activated, could I like restore my harddrive anytime I wanted like a HP System Restore with out having to activate? Thanks people!

Save the wpa.dbl file on a floppy. Next time you do a fresh install, just copy it to the proper directory and it will let you activate without having to call Microsoft. It will activate over the internet. I do it all the time unless it involves a new motherboard.

You mean you add the file and then activate it, because all i did was add the file and restart my computer

To answer your Ghost question: If you activate the XP install and then Ghost it, if you restore that Ghost image it will already be activated (unless you change mobos in which case it'll trigger an activation because your hardware changed). As long as you restore it with the same hardware it's no problem.

If you're smart you'll do a clean install, install all your basic apps and setup your system the way you like then Ghost it (all you need to do is Ghost the boot partition if you use multiple partitions).

This is what most of us do. Not only to avoid the hassles of activation, but because it's MUCH simpler to restore the Ghost image than re-install from scratch.

I Ghost my boot and apps partitions once a month and archive it on DVD. If anything goes wrong I can restore from the last backup.

I also ALWAYS Ghost my boot partition before installing any new major hardware (like a new vid card).

Here is an excellent site that explains the activation and how it works:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm