XP serial validation check

For any of you who have a pirated copy of XP. bad news.

Piracy-check mandatory for Windows add-ons

From now on, customers looking to get the latest add-ons to Windows will have to verify that their copy of the operating system is legit.

Beginning Tuesday, the piracy check will be mandatory for all customers worldwide who want to download add-ons for Windows XP.

The only exception is for security-related patches. Regardless of whether a system passes the test, security updates will be available to all Windows users via either manual download or automatic update.

The Microsoft Update and Windows Update utilities, which provide notifications of new patches, will require validation.

Read it here

Just formatted my mate's computer it was so badly infected, that was the only way I could see out of it.

XP insisted I activate or it would stop working after 15 days.
OK, fair enough.
I entered the COA & it said it was invalid :confused:

I had my copy of XP so I entered my COA - but it wouldn't accept that as it said it had been activated too many times :eek:
Only had this PC 11 months & never been asked to activate windows.


'Phoned the helpline thingy & the guy gave me an activation code but hung up when I questioned him about the above problems.

had a similar problem the other week with a customers pc in Canada (i do international support) and after some arguing with MS ended up with a free XP Pro.

Great except when trying to install it over 20 files are buggered, so got another copy sent, again the install is buggered, so now waiting for a 3rd.

On the bright side the codes are both fine, so i have 2 licenses for free lol

Tried to download DirectX 9 for someone's PC a couple of weeks ago - they're on dial up and didn't want the download time. All downloads from MS which aren't security patches are now of course subject to a Windows "validity check", and I've not got a single Windows PC any more, so that was a non starter. PC owner is now trying Mepis Linux though....