[lbtogo]

My son has a Dell Vistro 200 Slim that his mother bought that he wanted to upgrade.

We purchased a new ATX case, power supply, motherboard, and graphics card but used the original processor, ram, and drives (including the original hard drive). While configuring XP Home (original OS on original HD) in new desktop, he was required to enter in the MS XP Home product code and was able to coninue loading and configuring the desktop. After he loaded the drivers for the graphics card and restarted, XP once again requested that he enter the product code. Which he did, but was provided an error messaage that there was a product code error and he had 3 days to install a new XP or he would be locked out.

I'm assuming that Windows is thinking that he's loading it into a different computer, while in this case its an upgrade...the original Dell wastripped and not going to be used. Are we at the mercy of MS? I asked that he call MS 1st thing tomorrow am and inform them that this was an upgrade (they open at 5am Pt, while we're in Hawaii...that means 2 am, and he won't get them in the PM because they close at 8pm....5pm in Hawaii.

Any thoughts...options...???





I

[crazy4laptops]

you can't upgrade too many components in the same day, it confuses xp activation.

Try just re-installing xp from scratch. If xp is the o/s that came from the factory and you have the original cd, it's under the oem pre-activated licence. So installing shouldn't cause any trouble.

Or you can switch to linux until the issue with xp clears up.

[coastie65]

Hi ibtogo and welcome to the forums. To further expand on the previous post. You were moving a Hard driver with a Dell factory loaded OS to a custom built computer. The OS is configured to recognize the the Dell components and will not work in another computer. For instance, this eMachines was factory loaded. If I change out the optical drive Motherboard or HDD, my OS will not work. You can upgrade your processor and memory with no effect, as long as it is the same processor, Pentium D, C2D, and etc. For instance going from a Pentium D 805 to a Pentium D 945. My suggestion would be to invest in a Windows Installation Disk for the OS. If I change the MOBO in this thing, I have to jump through hoops with eMachines, or buy a copy of Windows XP MCE 2005 ( I did ). coastie65