OK, so maybe I was too quick to rejoice. After all, this is Microsoft we’re talking about.

So today, I got the last of my parts in, and was able to try activation. Unfortunately, their system wasn’t as permissive as I’d hoped it would be. For starters, it didn’t just instantly verify me and spit me back a code to enter. But it didn’t instantly make me talk to a customer service rep like it used to, either. Apparently their computer is now smart enough to ask me the same questions the rep had to ask me before. Things like: how many computers is this copy of Windows installed on (only 1), has there recently been major hardware changes (yes), did I get a new motherboard (yes), was the old one defective (no) … OOPS sorry, something in our license makes me not want to validate you. Now you have to talk to a rep anyway.

… one who would pretty much ask me the same general questions. But HE would give me the installation ID I needed. How thoughtful!

So thankfully, I am now validated. And hopefully I won’t have to bother with that again for a long time to come.

As our story begins, Garrett has decided that the time has come to upgrade the aging parts in his desktop computer …

So ya, I just bought a new processor (which required that I also purchase a new motherboard and thus a new graphics card). And so, my installation of XP balked when it saw all this new stuff. (I think the main problems were that [1] it couldn’t run the new ACPI, and [2] it didn’t know what to do with a 64-bit processor, since I upgraded from an AMD Athlon XP to an Athlon 64.)

Thus, I had to wipe my Windows partition and reinstall. (Yes, I tried the repair options, and they didn’t really work.) So I suppose it goes without saying that I’d now have to activate this fresh install of XP.

Since my only net connection was wifi (which doesn’t exactly work well with a fresh install of non-SP2 XP), I had to call the toll-free activation number.
And now it is necessary that I provide a little flashback…

About a month before, I reinstalled XP just to freshen it up a bit, since some little things here and there weren’t quite working they way they used to.

Anyway, back to present time, I called to activate. I read the installation ID to their computer, and … it VERIFIED it instantly, even though it had only been a month since I last activated it! (See, the way things used to work, their system supposedly would allow you to activate it, no questions asked, if it had been at least 4 months since the last activation of that copy of XP — although it never worked that smoothly for me.)

So, now that I got Windows installed, I needed to install SP2 from my handy-dandy SP2 CD. But not minutes after it would extract the installation files, the installation could not continue because its files were corrupt for some reason. And this also happened the 2 subsequent times I tried it again. So I’ve decided I should replace my hard drive now, while I can still read the data on it, before it’s completely gone. And that means I may need to reactivate XP on the new HD, so I’ll let you know if it goes just as smoothly.