ScuzzBlog: Diaries June 2023
Entry 16th June 2023: Post 1: XP Activation - Microsoft killed my PC.
XP Activation - Microsoft killed my PC.
You may have seen my feature the other day regarding the 'tinbox'
PCs I have in the collection. One of these machines is an Evesham
Micro XP machine complete with ZIP drive. The computer is used
quite a bit cus it has a large Amiga archive on it that I use.
On 20th December 2018 I was forced to change the graphics card
on the machine as the existing failed. Since that date I have
used the computer only for accessing the Amiga archive.
The computer was working fine and without fault when I undertook
the recent blog. Sadly when I came to switch on the machine a
few days later I was greeted with a notification from Microsoft
that due to the number of changes to the system I was required
to activate the product again. Failure to do so would mean that
the XP operating system would shut me out and make it unusable.
I thought ' Good luck activating XP today'.
This computer has not been online for over a decade and possibly
anything up to 15 years ago. I was somewhat amazed by this and
although I did find a kinda work around I was intrigued by what
just would happen in three days time. So I let the timer run out.
Sure enough on the third day the machine clocked the drives but
failed to boot. It refuses to recognise anything other than the
set-up menu with no access to XP either safe or normal mode.
Isn't that incredible. Never mind, nothing to do but salvage the
drives and use them on another machine and then install a couple
of old FAT drives and install Windows 98 which will be fine for
file management and the like. Thankfully I have enough XP machines
and I truly hate the OS anyway.
I shall be wary in the future of doing any hardware upgrades on
XP machines and probably steer well clear of them for fear of
initiating the deathly kill switch.
I assume you appreciate that XP can no longer be activated given
it expired in 2014, I believe. I have read that it may just be
possible to twist Microsoft's arm, but given that this machine
was a gift from the office it's probably still registered in their
name. I have a feeling this computer was originally my Windows
Millennium machine. Not sure.
XP Activation - Microsoft killed my PC.
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Last updated 16th June 2023
Chandraise Kingdom
Keep the Faith
scuzzscink 2023