Windows not genuine?

Revelation Joe

Hi there,
Have just installed updates on two PCs at work, one is a Philips iQon and the other is a Dell Dimension.
On both, we now get a message telling us that our copy of Windows is not genuine, yet on both PCs, it is the OS that was supplied with the PC from new? It's Win XP Home BTW...
Is this something to be concerned about?

Del

far2gud

The serail numbers may have turned up on a warez site somewhere and microsoft has flagged it. Give them a call and they should issue you a new one, presuming you have the license that is.

irlrobins

Moving to Windows forum

subway

whats the message you get when you go to the wga site?
one of my machines failed because the bios clock was wrong.

howecer, generally its a product key issue
do they have coa's printed on the side or do you have a full retail license?
if you dont have either of the above you need to buy a legal copy of windows
if you do then you need to reactivate windows using your valid product key -

backup your system before running regedit
1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
3. In the left pane, locate and then click the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents
4. In the right pane, right-click OOBETimer, and then click Modify.
5. Change at least one digit of this value to deactivate Windows.
6. Click Start, and then click Run.
7. In the Open box, type the following command, and then click OK.
%systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a
8. Click Yes, I want to telephone a customer service representative to activate Windows, and then click Next.
9. Click Change Product key.
10. Type the product key from the coa or license into the New key boxes, and then click Update.

activate windows and you should be fine

Ruu_Old

Sometimes that WGA can be very picky at times. I have had this issue a number of times when trying to use Windows Update. Give MS a call just to be sure.

Capt'n Midnight

you can use magic jellybean keyfinder to compare the serial number windows was installed with, to that on your COA

The COA one is the one you register with microsoft

there are tools to change your XP serial number , I can't find the link to doing it on the microsoft site, but that's really only useful if you are cloning machines

subway

Capt'n Midnight wrote:

there are tools to change your XP serial number , I can't find the link to doing it on the microsoft site, but that's really only useful if you are cloning machines

theres no real tool for it,
you change it by "pretending" to activate by phone.
the steps in my post above are directly from the MS kb.
they only post the steps for VL customers as under normal circumstances a retail customer will not be changing key without the help of an activation agent.
the steps however are identical

Capt'n Midnight

subway - ta that's the link I was looking for http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=328874

http://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder.shtml allows you to change the key - it's based on the microsoft scripts
http://www.skaro.net/cd-keyreader is another