Removing Service Packs

[ehaus81]

Hello,

Quick background to explain my situation: My girlfriend has a Dell desktop that has XP Home installed on it but it didn't come with a restore disc. The machine is now 5 years old and out of warranty so getting a disc from Dell is not an option. I have a Windows XP Home SP3 OEM disc but the computer has a key for the original version (no service packs installed) so it will not work with my disc. Is there a way to remove the service packs so that I can reinstall using the original key?

[nitroshift]

If the sticker on the pc is for XP Home edition, you can use your disk to install it.

[Ponch]

Have you tried the key or are you supposing ? It s not a question of SP, it is a question of version and activation.

[ehaus81]

I have tried to use the key with that disc and it tells me that the provided key doesn't support that version of Windows (or something to that extent, I'm at work now and don't have it in front of me). I will try it again and post exactly what it says.

[cluberti]

The only thing that SPs did to the product key is keep adding new checks for pirated keys with each version. Valid keys from RTM (SP0) still work with SP3 discs - the only other thing that could cause it is if the disc is a royalty Dell OEM disc (usually purple or blue sticker with "Dell" on it, not a hologram CD) and your key is for another type (retail OEM, retail, corp, etc), or the converse, etc. I'm guessing your XP Home OEM disc isn't a Dell disc (as you say yourself you don't have a DELL disc, you have an XP Home OEM disc), and thus from this I can infer that it's very likely your XP Home CD is a real OEM XP hologram disc - meaning it's OEM, but it is a retail OEM, not royalty OEM disc, and a royalty OEM key will absolutely not work with a retail OEM CD without hackery to the CD. Just because it's an OEM disc doesn't mean it'll accept just any OEM key.