WinXP Activation Issue...

Customer brought me a "Averatec" laptop...
WinXP Home Edition Svc Pak 1

Screen pops up at boot up saying that Windows hasn't been activated and asks if I want to activate. I say yes, and it logs off Windows...I say no, and it logs off Windows.



What might be causing this?
I can go into "Safe Mode" without any problem.

 

Damaged registry entries, or wpa files.

OEM, right?

They activate according to the BIOS, not over the phone, not online. Was the BIOS updated? If so, Avertac may need to be contacted. System Restore may provide relief, if its still working.

You could go through some of the malware checks, but unless a third party app is doing it, I've never seen this fix aside from running the recovery disks. Don't do that yet, of course, in the even someone else has a suggestion.

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=35407

 

I seem to remember having this happen to me. It happened because you only have so long (30 days I think) to activate windows, if you don't do it in that time period it just keeps shutting down the pc. My only solution was to reinstall windows and make sure I activated right away. I don't know if that is the same problem or not, you might want to ask the person how long the activate windows thing has been coming up, if they ignored it for longer than 30 days, that might be the problem.

 

The 30 day period doesn't exist with OEMs.

Thats not the same thing as an OEM Windows XP CD, btw.

 

Plus...

I failed to inform you, that when I say "yes" to activate, it comes back and tells me that it's already been activated...then it logs off...

 

You are prompted to activate Windows every time you restart your computer (Q312295)