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I see, thank you for taking the time to answer all my questions and helping me with this. It has made installing Windows a lot easier.

Okies, I finally got Windows XP Pro to work. Thanks again for all the help. Much obliged. I'm going to try and learn how to make a multi-boot disc now

Nopes, I used Pro COA key for Pro and Home COA key for Home version Yeps, both COA had the royalty oem names next to the key. I was able to get it working for the HP laptop using the SLP key that I found using Belarc Advisor but I had not done that for the Pro XP Dell laptop and had already formatted it so could not get the SLP for the Dell model laptop. Yeah, after posting this earlier, I had a look through this forum and found that thread and a few others. It helped me get the Home version working but still no go on the Pro. It was pretty confusing though as I pretty much had no clue what most people were saying as I'm not too tech savy . I'm curious though how did you find out what PID belonged to what royaly oem? Also can I say use the key from an HP one to preactivate a Dell one provided they both are for the same OS? Or does the key check that the required royalty oem name is in the bios before it will preactivate? Also, while I was googling I found a whitepaper at the Microsoft site that was posted in 2005 giving me a key for preactivation. Does that one still work? Sorry I should have been more clear, both had COA keys but only the Home version was accepted during the install whereas the Pro key would not be accepted during install process. The Home version though did not allow me to activate by automated phone or internet. I did not try talking to a live sales rep because I really didn't feel like saying all those numbers over again. I got the Home version working now and just need to get the Pro one working.Anyhow thanks for answering all the questions and helping. I'll post back if I get Pro working as I'm currently using the RyanVM Integrator program and addon bios pack to create a new Pro oem disc. Thanks again.

Hi, could anyone help me. I usually format for friends their PCs. This hasn't been a huge problem before SP2 but now I'm getting all sorts of problems. This problem is for both XP Pro AND XP Home as one laptop has a COA for Home and the other laptop has one for XP Pro. As the laptops did not come with recovery CDs, I've had to use my own. I tried checking if their is a hidden partition on the laptops to see if it had the oem restore but both do not have it. My first problem is that I can install Windows XP Home SP2 onto the laptop using the bottom COA serial but once I boot into Windows and it asks to activate, it fails. I tried internet activation but it doesn't work. I then tried the automated telephone activation and it said it couldn't activate it either. I then gave up and tried working on the Windows XP Pro on the other laptop but when I tried using the COA serial for that during install, it said it was invalid. I was using OEM versions for both Windows installation, could that be a problem? The HP Pavillion ze2308wm had a COA for Windows Home and the Dell Inspiron 700m had a COA for Windows Pro. Are the COAs for retail versions of those? If they were, why does it let me activate during install for Windows Home but when you get to the Internet/Phone it doesn't work? Will I need to call up again and talk to a live representative? How would I go about doing that for the Pro version since it doesn't give me one of those long 50+ digit numbers since it says the key is invalid during install. These laptops haven't had much changed from them either by looking at the specs on the sites so it can't be because of too many hardware changes. Both are out of warranty as well. If I were to use SP1 Windows CD and slipstream SP2 onto it, would the serials work then as maybe those serials are only for SP1? Okies I have been reading over the pre-activate Windows thread. I do have I think is a royalty oem key as when I was using Belarc Advisor, it showed the Windows key being different from the COA one. The only problem is I never realized you could do pre-activation and have already formatted the PC. Is it still possible to use the key? If yes, what would I need to get it working? This is for Home as Pro only had a COA key. Thanks for any help, it is appreciated.