Ugh, damn Microsoft!

[The Savior]

2 days ago I was installing a new motherboard that I got for Christmas. Wall was going well (which should have been the first sign of trouble) until I turn boot up. I go through and make my changes to the BIOS, and reboot. First oddity - LILO is now command-line based. Whatever, it's not a big deal having to type in 'linux' or 'windows.' I boot into windowsXP like usual, except when I try to log in, it wants me to activate it. Whatever, I grab the phone and get busy. When I type in my code on the phone, it rejects it. So I press the button to talk to a real person. I tell him my number, and he says that it's a no-go. He tells me to press the 'get a new number' button. I do, but the same damn number code comes up. He askes if I got XP presintalled on my computer. I tell him yes, and he says that OEM copies of XP can't be activated. :mad: Anyways, I have a OEM copy of Win95 that I'm trying to install, but I can't get it to go. It won't boot directly off the CD, and it seems that it needs to load some utility in windows first. Which, of course, can't happen. Any suggestions as to how I can get this to work?

[El Oso Verde]

I think you need a boot disk with cd-rom drivers on it.

[Beldaran]

It would seem that the most logical alternative would be to acquire a non-OEM operating system. I have discovered that OS's can be found quite cheap on e-bay. It might be worth your while to invest in a copy of XP. Or, you could try Kazaa lite, although I don't know if I'd want such important software to be of a questionable nature. If it had problems, getting support would be impossible.

[The Savior]

Investing in XP is not an option. There's no fucking way I'm going to support MS just because they intentionally gimped their software. I'd also not going to download something like my OS. I hadn't thought of eBay, perhaps I should check there.

<update> I found a copy of windows 95 for 12 bucks with 2 hours left, maybe I should buy it.

[Beldaran]

Perhaps. But Windows 95 is inferior and outdated. I managed to get WinME for a good price.

May I ask why you are looking at Win95?

[War Lord]

I could mail you a copy of XP pro with Service Pack 1 already integrated....

Not to mention for the low low price of free. eBay can't beat that.
I'm also not even sure MS has released XP cds with SP1 integrated.

[Beldaran]

Originally posted by War Lord
I could mail you a copy of XP pro with Service Pack 1 already integrated....

Not to mention for the low low price of free. eBay can't beat that.
I'm also not even sure MS has released XP cds with SP1 integrated.

When XP was released I heard lots of rumors about how it would not function at all unless it was a legitimate copy. Have you encountered any problems along this line? I assume your copy works perfectly or you would not use it. How did you circumvent these types of issues?

[War Lord]

I have it installed on this machine, my other machine, my laptop, and quite a few friends computers.

MS's activation stuff was cracked before XP was even released, quite pathetic.

MS tried to circumvent this by blocking the common code everyone used on this XP Pro version so if they tried to update to SP1, it wouldn't let them.

All that was needed to get around this was a simple key change.
*shrugs*

[The Savior]

Originally posted by Beldaran
Perhaps. But Windows 95 is inferior and outdated. I managed to get WinME for a good price.

May I ask why you are looking at Win95?

Because I have the 95->98SE upgrade (which I legally bought and paid for, no less), and it's cheaper.


Originally posted by War Lord
I could mail you a copy of XP pro with Service Pack 1 already integrated....

Not to mention for the low low price of free. eBay can't beat that.
I'm also not even sure MS has released XP cds with SP1 integrated.

I heard the same things that Beldaran has, how do you go about circumventing the copy protection?

[edit] Nevermind, you already replied. Sure, I'd love a copy. I'll PM you in a minute with address and such.

[War Lord]

Ask JJ how it works, I sent him a copy recently. (Minus the SP1 integration, as I hadn't messed with that yet, since SP1 had just been released.)

[Radium]

I love my xp pro cd that i integrated :D

[Ich]

Someone here (I forget who) had their cracked XP crash and vowed to never pirate software again.

[Gerudo]

well, i have a pirated xp on my system, the only problem i ran into was some .dll didnt install... no prob, xp works perfectly...

[goKi]

i have a pirated version of XP on two of my computers.. im not going to pay for a license on each of my computers, thats just too expensive

[MottZilla]

My bro, I gave him a pirated WinXP to replace his unstable WinME. His PC now runs better than he's ever had one run before.

Anyway, I never knew XP actually went through with the activate crap. lol.

[vegeta1215]

Originally posted by The Savior
I'd also not going to download something like my OS.

You wouldn't download Linux for free offline? That's the cool thing about Linux, you can download and share and copy it all you want, it doesn't matter cause it's free.

I say, ditch WIndows, try using only Linux for a while. :D




...but, if you don't want to, that's ok. But I have a question, if you had XP pre-installed on your computer, didn't the place that sold your computer to you give you some kind of restore cd or something that had XP on it? They should have.

oh, LILO...not sure about that. I have a little menu when LILO starts, and I have option of typing commands in case I want to start at run level 3 or something. There's probably an easy way of configuring it. Here's what my /etc/lilo.conf looks like, in case it helps:


boot=/dev/hda
map=/boot/map
install=/boot/boot.b
vga=normal
default=linux
keytable=/boot/us.klt
prompt
timeout=50
message=/boot/message
menu-scheme=wb:bw:wb:bw
image=/boot/vmlinuz-2.4.18
label=linux
root=/dev/hda7
append=" hdc=ide-scsi"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux-old
root=/dev/hda7
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" hdc=ide-scsi devfs=nomount quiet"
vga=788
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=linux-nonfb
root=/dev/hda7
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" hdc=ide-scsi devfs=mount"
read-only
image=/boot/vmlinuz
label=failsafe
root=/dev/hda7
initrd=/boot/initrd.img
append=" hdc=ide-scsi devfs=mount failsafe"
read-only

[The Savior]

I ment download off of some p2p program. :blah: I'm using Mandrake 9 that I downloaded right now. I would stick to Linux, except:
A) Other people in the house need Windows, hence there has to be a copy on the computer
B) Windows makes it much easier to install hardware.

Basically I just use Linux when I have little emergancies like this one.

[vegeta1215]

Ah ok. That's cool.

I do agree with you on the hardware thing. That and commercially available software and games (which you can walk into any store and buy of the shelf) are the only things Linux is missing.

Hope things work out for you :thumbsup:

[Fiyerstorm]

Free Integrated Windows XP?

/me drools furiously....

(I use sucky Windows ME..)