Tell Captain hook

and I'm not pegging his leg

>Cut and Paste:

"Don't know how many of you are running "fixed" copies of Windows XP Professional, but with the release of Service Pack 2 mere weeks away, I found this info that may prove useful to some of you:
Quote:
If you have a less-than-legit copy of Windows XP, you WILL be locked out of your computer if you install SP2

This only applies to Windows XP Pro with a Volume License Product Key (VLK). XP Home is not affected. At all. If you got XP Pro with your computer (OEM) or purchased it (Retail), you're legit and therefore OK. If you have a pirated copy of XP you will find after applying SP2 you will not be able to log on.

Here's why:

If you go into the system control panel, you'll see a number of the format 11111-222-3333333-44444. This is your Product ID, generated from your CD Key. The three-digit group identifies what product this ID is for. On XP Pro Corp the three digit group will be 64x, where x might be number. Legit copies will be 640. In the Gold release of XP anything from 640-649 is valid. When MS found out XP Pro Corp was being pirated, they blocked the two most commonly used product keys from being able to install Service Pack 1.

With SP1, only the two known leaked keys were blocked. They both generated 640, and crackers assumed ALL 640 keys were blocked. Key generators making corporate keys will always generate codes of 641-649. These keys worked... until now. Microsoft has never used 641-649 in any keys so they disabled them. Service Pack 2 RC1 (current Technical Preview) is unaffected, but all builds after v.2111, including the soon-to-come RC2 and the final public release, will not let you log on if your product ID contains 641-649.

To reiterate, and hopefully spare people some grief: If you are using a pirated or keygen-made CD-Key, you will be locked out of your computer after installing SP2!

You will be presented with the windows activation dialog. XP Pro Corp does not have activation, but if you click "Activate" you will be told your key is invalid and be prompted for a new one. After entering a valid key you can log on. In case you're wondering, it doesn't try to phone home. You can change your key and proceed even with no connection to the Internet. If this fails, you can use the old "Telephone" > "Change Product Key" trick.


Now I checked my Product ID by right-clicking "My Computer" ---> "Properties", and looking on the "General" tab, "Registered To:"
Underneath that, you should see the Product ID.
My original ID contained the three digit number "643", which from the above post, would have been blacklisted by SP 2.
I then used the attached 4 in 1 keygen file to generate a new serial number that had "640" as the three digit number.
Next, I used the Keyfinder to change my previous serial number.
I then checked the Product ID number, and sure enough, it was now 640.

To make a long story short, today I went to the new windows update site:

http://v5.windowsupdate.microsoft.com/

and downloaded service pack - 2 RELEASE CANDIDATE 2 (it is NOT the final version yet), and it installed just fine.

We'll find out for sure in a few weeks, but for now this looks promising, and I figured I'd share it with all of you. "