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After restore to new hardware, Win XP cannot be validated

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I have Acronis Home Plus 2011.

I have successfully restored everything from a Dell Dimension 8250 (Pentium 4) running Win XP Pro 2002 with SP3 (OEM installed) to a Dell Optiplex GX620 (Pentium 4) - except that at the Logo screen it wants to do the "Is this a legal copy?" thing and tells me that there has been too great a change in the hardware and this copy of XP cannot be validated because it was an OEM installation tied to the old hardware.

Now what?

Walt

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As a rule, OEM versions of Windows OS is not transferebable to a different machine. IF you restore to diff hardware, the OS won't acitivate.

Some changes are allowable, chaning the hdisk, and such, but an entirely new machine; that's a no no. If you buy Windows on disk, you can transfer it to a different machine but not the version that PC makers have licensed for their retail equipment.

You could just use it without activiation and forego getting any updates but eventually it will shut down and cease to operate without activiation.

Fix, buy copy of Windows from Amazon or wherever and use that license number.

Hi Scott, you said above that a fix would be to buy a copy of Windows, and use that license number. I have an image backup from a Dell Dimension 5100C (Pentium D, Windows XP) that I would like to put on a new Intel I5 or I7 system (and scrap the old system). I have been able to do something similar starting from a "frankenstein" system with a generic OEM copy of XP... Windows recognized the significant hardware change, but allowed activation anyway as one of the two (or three?) total allowed significant hardware upgrades. On the other hand, I've tried this from a Dell machine to a non-Dell machine and had activation fail, due, I was told, to the fact that the OEM was a big dealer (Dell), and for them Windows activates based on some signature in the BIOS or someplace that Dell uses, requiring that the destination also be a Dell. That would be fine for my 5100C above, but I guess I'm concerned it may not work, even from Dell to Dell. I called Dell, and he couldn't tell me whether or not Microsoft would accept the new Dell as a legitimate upgrade.

I guess my question(s) is this: If I purchase the new Dell hardware and it ends up failing the activate after performing the dissimilar hardware restore, would I be able to buy a copy of XP and somehow use the new license key to activate the restored image? If so, when/where would that key be entered? I don't remember there being a place to enter a new license key during the activation process. (There is a character sequence that must be entered, but I didn't think this was the same thing as a license key.) I don't mind paying for another copy of XP, I just don't want to go through the whole process of installating a brand new copy of XP and everything else that is already on the existing image.

Thanks in advance for your help.
Rob

I've never tried doing that . worst case you call microsoft to activate over the phone and tell them the situation and i think they can then give you a valid sequence to enter.

Thanks for the suggestion. I may try calling the activation phone number, attempt getting a human to talk to, and then asking them whether they can do that or not. If I can get a straight answer, I'll post back here. (If they say yes they can, I suppose I should get a written, signed-in-blood statement from them attesting to the fact ;).