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WinXP Upgrade CD Key

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by karini4 1 view

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I upgraded a win98 machine with a WinXP Pro upgrade. I have now decided to upgrade a win2K Pro machine to WinXP Pro. I have a new WinXP Pro CD key for the Win2K machine and want to use the same media that I used for my win98 machine upgrade. When I start the install on the Win2K machine and input the new CD key, I am told the key is invalid.

Is this normal? Do I need new media? I did not receive the media for the Win2K machine, just the CD key.

Help please.

8 replies

by karini4

I kind of thought that this may be the case. The Win2K machine has an OEM install CD key, and the WinXP upgrade CD key is retail. Thanks for the interesting link. I would like to know how to go about changing the PID. The link you provided was a little over my head. Can you help?

by thechas

There are a number of XP Upgrade distributions.

Gold, SP1, SP2.
Then, retail and OEM.

I suspect that Microsoft has several pressing runs within each major distributions that use different product key sequences.

You need to check what distribution your upgrade package and upgrade license are for.

Perchance, is your license for the W2K box a volume or OEM license?
If so, then you need a volume or OEM media for the upgrade.

Chas

by karini4

You get the points since you expanded on tip 1. Your links led me to all sorts of interesting information and I actually created a CD with the altered PID and got it to boot on the win2k machine with the OEM install screen. Unfortunately (and I can't believe this!), the install copy of Win2K was an eval copy and couldn't be upgraded anyway. I got on the phone with the place I purchased the machine and gave them proper heck. They are mailing me Windows XP media with a new key code. The downside here is all the time I spent on this, and I will probably have to do a clean install which entails installing all programs and condiguring settings, etc. Live and Learn.

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