The initial support rep, who acts as a kind of gate keeper and call router, took a bunch of my information, listened to my problem and put me on hold. After 10-15 minutes he came back and indicated that I needed to speak to a technical support agent.I called tech support, and was treated to a long list of “pay per incident” support options, until at the last minute I could dial “0” to speak to a technical support representative.A real person who also had no idea what to do, and directed me to Microsoft technical support. I was given the option to ask for “help”, where I was routed to a real person.
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The automated phone system had no clue how to handle that. I’ve called out where the installation ID should be, and as you can see it’s It asked me to type in the “installation ID” that should be displayed on my screen at this point. I call the activation number, which is of course automated.I hesitated, but having advised so many people in the past that phone activation is no big deal, I decided to live by my own words, and picked up the phone.
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The only option was to activate Windows over the phone. The network card hadn’t been configured yet, there was no external connectivity available. The choices came up, I plugged in a network cable and told Windows to activate itself over the net. In my experience Windows will normally allow you to log in and complete your set-up without activating, giving you 30 days to get around to that. I removed the CD, and hard-booted the machine, and sure enough, Windows came up except that it presented me with a message I’d never seen before, and didn’t even know existed: “You must first activate this copy of Windows before you can log in”.
![windows xp mode windows 7 locks up windows xp mode windows 7 locks up](https://fossbytes.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/windows-update-windows-7.jpg)
It just generally seemed to be working, and working well. Windows Setup dutifully accepted the product key, reformatted the entire hard drive as I requested and copied over files from the CD. So when I installed Windows I entered the original Dell product key, even though I was installing a retail copy of XP Home. If not, I expected it would at least generate an error when I entered it. The product key for one CD of Windows XP Home should work with any other – remember, it’s the product key you’re purchasing, not just a CD. Like so many of my readers, I’d lost, misplaced, or just didn’t feel like looking for the actual Dell Windows XP Home disk, particularly since I had a old pre-SP1 retail disk (purchased from the Microsoft Company Store) in front of me that I’d never used. The product key for XP Home that was installed on it is on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop.
![windows xp mode windows 7 locks up windows xp mode windows 7 locks up](http://www.windowspcdownload.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/1488367780-GKD3UVBKUlCLqLpZjz5qefJOEJRpF9-OhlYC9xr7pdeUL8tBP4H_hTB0YlbfSkNozFEWw300.png)
Now, here is the only confusing factor: the machine is a Dell, and came with Dells OEM version of Windows XP Home pre-installed.
![windows xp mode windows 7 locks up windows xp mode windows 7 locks up](https://i0.wp.com/dellwindowsreinstallationguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/7.png)
Today I decided that this was the machine to use for a new employee at my wife’s business. I used it as a testbed and installed Ubuntu Linux on it, played with it for a bit, and then left it to sit in a corner. I’d loaned the machine to a friend for a while who’d recently returned it. It came with Windows XP Home pre-loaded from Dell. I have a Dell Latitude 131L that’s perhaps two years old. This time it was me.Īnd after an hour and a half on the phone, I was no further along.Īnd yet, left to my own devices I had the machine activated in about 10 minutes. That question wasn’t posed by just any reader. Windows XP is no longer supported, and it’s very likely that Microsoft will eventually decommission its activation servers. This article is here for historical purposes only.