Cannot activate WinXP

I have a PC here (XP Home SP3), and the motherboard died. It was replaced, but as we all know, Windows generally isn't happy with a MB swap, so I performed a repair install as I have done hundreds of times with hundreds of other motherboard replacements. Everything went pretty smoothly, but now I can't activate!!! When I click on the "Activate Windows" link off of the Start > All Programs list, nothing happens; no window opens, nothing. The same thing happens if I try using the little set of keys down by the clock; I click 'em, the keys disappear, and that's it.... how do I activate this?!?!?!??!

Oh yeah- IE6 is doinked too, and I'm trying to fix that also, but it's not going real well either. Kind of strange that this is happening after a repair install.. :confused

 

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307890
scroll down to the activate by phone and see if that works.

scratch that idea; I re-read and see that clicking activate doesn't do anything.

 

Try this to force the Activation Wizard to open:
Open the Windows Product Activation Wizard by clicking Start, then Run, and then typing "oobe/msoobe /a"

I'm not sure if the quotes are needed. Try it with and without and see if either forces the wizard to open.

 

What differences were in the motherboards?
Always felt best and easier to use a direct replacement.

 

Much as I hate to say you may end up doing a complete fresh reinstall, been there done that. When you do an install your setup info is stored, only and exact MOBO will work.

Phil

 

@ plodr: already tried everything to get the Activation Wizard to open, including the "msoobe" command you suggested... it won't open. Therefore I cannot use the phone method, or anything else
@hrlow2: true, a direct replacement is always best, but not always possible or practical. In this scenario, we were dealing with a 5 year old Dell, an exact replacement was basically unavailable for a decent price, and the owner of the PC was "on the cheap" in a big way, so we used an older (new, but discontinued) Biostar socket 478 board with a similar Intel chipset. We were able to use the old RAM (DDR333) and CPU (Pentium4 2.66) and aging AGP video card, so we saved some money by not being forced to use DDR2 or DDR3 and a new CPU and new video card. I've done this type of similar exchange MANY times, and it's usually much more painless, especially when using the same or very close chipsets....
@ Oldphil: that's what I think I'm going to do. I didn't go to work today (flu) so I didn't talk to the owner of the PC, but I've already saved his data (music, pics, docs, etc).