winxp question

heres the situation.. ive upgraded a clients pc (mobo, cpu, vidcard) and so i hafta reinstall winxp home ed... ive managed to get the serial off their registry coz they dont have hte orig cd anymore... my question is can i use my orig winxp home cd to install on their pc along with their cdkey i got from their registry?

and what if the cdkey they had is a blacklisted one.. is there a way to find out whether or not their cdkey blacklisted or not for SP2 updates?

Using your own cd and their cd key should be fine if you are using the same version of XP. As far as I know, you need to match the keys to the install cd.

To determine if the cd key is valid, install the OS and run windowsupdate. If the key is invalid, you will receive a message advising you to contact your system administrator.

ive heard that if an invalid key is detected youll be locked out of yer pc. is that true?.. i men i wouldnt want to run windowsupdate and then hav me kicked off or something...

Originally Posted by cmge

ive heard that if an invalid key is detected youll be locked out of yer pc. is that true?.. i men i wouldnt want to run windowsupdate and then hav me kicked off or something...

I have tested this by:

1) Installing XP with a valid cd key;
2) Changing the cd key in the registry to an invalid key;
3) Trying to run windowsupdate and having it fail.

You may run into a problem when you try and activate XP. If you can't activate, I think the OS will cease to function in 30 days.

Why not just backup your activation files?

WINDOWS\System32\wpa.dbl
WINDOWS\System32\wpa.bak

Re-Install using your CD and their CD Key and then just copy these two files back into the proper location and reboot.