PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - Transferring Windows??
Thread: Transferring Windows??
View Single Post
Old 10th Sep 2007, 19:43
  #9 (permalink)  
Robear
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Location: Montreal, Canada
Age: 72
Posts: 6
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Here is some thing found on the net on How to save your activation Key


Users who reformat their hard drive and perform a clean installation of the operating system will find that they need to reactivate the product. But, as long as the new installation is on the same system and there won't be any hardware changes it is possible to transfer the existing product activation and skip having to go through the product activation process again. Follow the steps below to save the activation status information and restore it once your system is rebuilt:
  1. Double-click My Computer
  2. Double-click on the "C" drive
  3. Go to the CWindows\System32 folder (you may have to click on the link that says "Show The contents of this folder")
  4. Find the files "wpa.dbl" and "wpa.bak" and copy them to a safe location. You can copy them on a floppy drive or burn it onto a CD or DVD.
  5. After you have reinstalled Windows XP on your reformatted hard drive, click "No" when asked if you want to go ahead and go through the activation process
  6. Reboot your computer into SafeMode (you can either press F8 as Windows is booting up to see the Windows Advanced Options menu and select SAFEBOOT_OPTION=Minimal or follow the instructions in Starting Windows XP in SafeMode
  7. Double-click My Computer
  8. Double-click on the "C" drive
  9. Go to the CWindows\System32 folder (you may have to click on the link that says "Show The contents of this folder")
  10. Find the file "wpa.dbl" and "wpa.bak" (if it exists) and rename them to "wpadbl.new" and "wpabak.new"
  11. Copy your original "wpa.dbl" and "wpa.bak" files from your floppy disk, CD or DVD into the CWindows\System32 folder
  12. Restart your system (if you followed the directions in Starting Windows XP in SafeMode you may need to go back into MSCONFIG to turn off booting into SafeMode)
Voila! Your Windows XP operating system is now reinstalled on your reformatted hard drive and you are all activated without having to actually go through the product activation process!

Good luck
R
Robear is offline  
Reply