Thanks for the info. Having never delt with MS on software activation, the whole thing is still a bit confusing to me. I have some OEM Windows from a computer I bought that died. But I thought the software was somehow linked to the motherboard or bios, and wouldn't work on another machine??
I had an interesting, related experience today. This info may be very useful out there. I replaced my son's HD in his laptop with a larger one. Loaded Windows XP and drivers from the CDs that came with the laptop. No problem.
But when I went to MS to get the SP2 update, it appreared to download, but wasn't on my system when I checked. Tried several times with no luck. It was stuck at SP1.
I found a MS site that "validates" your software (
Genuine Microsoft Software). It liked mine and said I was approved to download updates, but even after the validation, they still wouldn't take.
Someone in a forum suggested the following and it worked. I have no idea what was going on, or why this worked but it did. Hope this helps someone. BTW, if anyone can explain what this is, I'd be interested.
Start, Run, cmd, OK
Regsvr32 wuapi.dll <enter>
Regsvr32 wuaueng.dll <enter>
Regsvr32 wuaueng1.dll <enter>
Regsvr32 wucltui.dll <enter>
Regsvr32 wups.dll <enter>
Regsvr32 wups2.dll <enter>
Regsvr32 wuweb.dll <enter>
Restart computer and try downloading updates again