Activate once?

[ELDoro]

Hey, I just recently installed windows xp on my computer and did all the activation stuff. Well I was just thinking about reformatting and a question came to mind....... since I have already activated my XP, when I reformat is it going to let me activate it again???? It seems foolish to make someone buy XP over and over again so I'm guessing this isnt true but wanted to make sure.

[Blue_Gundam2002]

You have to activate every time, but as long as your hardware hasn't had a drastic change you shouldn't have any problems. Worst case senario, you have to call microsft and activate over the phone.

[toomyg]

Not lately but I've reformatted mine 2 or 3 times in the past 2 years without any problems of reactivation

[Sharif]

As long as you actually bought the software, and can prove it, you can avoid any legal trouble they throw you. Besides, you shouldn't have any as I reformat like 50 times a month...

[TeenPcknowit]

If you reformated 50 times a month that would leave only a few hours for sleep, bathroom, eating, and gaming.
:P. I reformat about twice a year. It's a pain to get all those drivers together...

[not important]

I've reinstalled my copy several times. I had to call MS when I installed it on a new build. It's painless and only takes a few minutes.

[toomyg]

Ya there was a time awhile back something on my desktop messed up and said my xp eom key was invalid is posted a 1-800 number to call and after telling them what happend they gave me this 20 something digit number to put in and it was like new

Very nice people at M$


Well on the phone anyways

[Strider]

Never had any problems myself re-activating Windows XP, but I have had strange problems in having to re-activation. Such as installing software and having to do the activation all over again, still scrathing my head on that one.

[glc]

Jeez - I've only reformatted 3 times since 1997 and 2 of those times were for installing a new OS. Only once did I reformat and put the same OS back on, that was when NT crashed and burned on me, I probably could have fixed it but as I had just done a full backup the day before I decided to just nuke and pave and do a dual boot with 98 while I was at it.

[MulderMan]

thanks for that, i would of ended up asking it my self. does it matter if the disk is oem or retail?

[glc]

Nope, activation is activation.

[Driftwood50]

I was wondering that myself. Since I reformat and reinstall windows on a six months to a yearly basis I was a little concerned about the re-activation process.

I found a site: "http://www.windowsxpatoz.com/cgi-bin/usability/index.cgi?answer=1050060975&id=1036281415" explaining how to reinstall without re-activating.

I'm not ready to reinstall as of yet but I have backed up my, "wpa.dbl" file for the inevitable.

Regards,
Driftwood50