Windows XP Activation Question

[ironclaw]

I'm thinking about buying a Windows XP Home OEM installation disc...

However, once Microsoft chooses not to support Windows XP anymore, will I still be able to activate it?

For example, if I wanted to install and activate Windows XP 10 years from now, would it still work?

Thanks!

[tigger]

welcome to tpu.

hard to say but in 10yrs,i doubt it very much.probably vista will be history by then too.

[niko084]

It is doubtful but there are a handful of tools to take care of such issues out there.

[Polaris573]

If you don't have XP yet and you're going to buy a new OS, I would just by vista home premium. That way you don't have to pay another $80 a few years later to upgrade again. Unless your one of the die hards that intends to NEVER use Vista.

[k0rn_h0li0]

why home? why not professional or media center or vista like polaris said

[ironclaw]

If you don't have XP yet and you're going to buy a new OS, I would just by vista home premium. That way you don't have to pay another $80 a few years later to upgrade again. Unless your one of the die hards that intends to NEVER use Vista.

I already have Vista on my laptop, but I don't like it. :ohwell:

I'm a diehard XP user, so I'd like to have XP on hand if I ever decide to build my own system someday.

why home? why not professional or media center or vista like polaris said

Well, Home is the cheapest. Do you think Professional is worth the extra money?

[zekrahminator]

Well, Home is the cheapest. Do you think Professional is worth the extra money?
No, unless you use a laptop. MCE is home with that crappy/nearly useless media center, and pro is generally designed for laptops or corporations. Spend the $50 you save on something worthwhile :).

[niko084]

No, unless you use a laptop. MCE is home with that crappy/nearly useless media center, and pro is generally designed for laptops or corporations. Spend the $50 you save on something worthwhile :).

Well Pro is plenty worth it if you have a dual core, or want to use 4gigs + of ram..

But for general use, no its really not worth it... Like someone said before 99% of Pro users don't know how to use it to take advantage of its extras..

[Scavar]

Xp Pro lets you use 4GBs of RAM? Is it a tweak or is that natural and I just never knew?

[ktr]

No, unless you use a laptop. MCE is home with that crappy/nearly useless media center, and pro is generally designed for laptops or corporations. Spend the $50 you save on something worthwhile :).

MCE is fantastic...much better than those clones...it has the ability to support many great plugins. The key thing is the plugins.

Xp Pro lets you use 4GBs of RAM? Is it a tweak or is that natural and I just never knew?

niko is wrong about the memory. 32bit can only map 3.2gb (windows rounds it to 3.5)...unless you switch to x64.

http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/server/PAE/PAEmem.mspx

read this... you can use a switch to allocate more to applications.

[Mussels]

No, unless you use a laptop. MCE is home with that crappy/nearly useless media center, and pro is generally designed for laptops or corporations. Spend the $50 you save on something worthwhile :).

one mistake - MCE is *PRO* with the extras - it says pro everywhere, just with the media center app and a new desktop theme.

Well Pro is plenty worth it if you have a dual core, or want to use 4gigs + of ram..

But for general use, no its really not worth it... Like someone said before 99% of Pro users don't know how to use it to take advantage of its extras..

Home lets you use one physical CPU with upto two cores/threads. Pro lets you use twp physical CPU's, with upto four cores/threads total. XP home and pro only support 4GB at most, and its buggy. you need XP64 for 4GB+

[Joshmcmillan]

I know my system specs say I already have a 3800+ X2(dual core) but I haven't actually got it yet. 1 month and 4 days.lol. Will I be able to use my x2 to full advantage on windows xp home? I'm using xp prof now but I would prefer to use home when I get a computer I will be using for more then a small amount of time. Being the only windows I have that can do updates, media player 11, ie 7.........genuine advantage...... If you know what I mean. So I would prefer to use home because of that reason but would prof make noticeable differences with an X2? What about XP64? I could ummm somehow get an iso file of that to fall onto my desktop... How much better is it with a 64bit CPU? Worth it?

[Wile E]

I know my system specs say I already have a 3800+ X2(dual core) but I haven't actually got it yet. 1 month and 4 days.lol. Will I be able to use my x2 to full advantage on windows xp home? I'm using xp prof now but I would prefer to use home when I get a computer I will be using for more then a small amount of time. Being the only windows I have that can do updates, media player 11, ie 7.........genuine advantage...... If you know what I mean. So I would prefer to use home because of that reason but would prof make noticeable differences with an X2? What about XP64? I could ummm somehow get an iso file of that to fall onto my desktop... How much better is it with a 64bit CPU? Worth it?

64bit actually performs better than 32bit Pro in most cases. I saw an average of 5-7% increase in most games. There's definitely a catch tho, crappy driver support. Of the drivers that do exist, most of them are pretty buggy. For instance, my JMicron SATA controller drivers would randomly crash on me. That's a terrible driver to have problems with. lol I really couldn't suggest it to anyone at the moment.

As far as Home vs Pro, according to what Mussels says, if you ever plan on getting a quad core cpu, you would have to get pro, as Home won't support it. If you happen to come across a Student or Corporate edition of Pro, they don't need activation. wink,wink

[Joshmcmillan]

Hi,
When I bought my last computer about a week ago(quickest upgrade ever) lol I bought it off ebay and sold for profit.. yeah well it had a copy of vista pirated in it. Is there anyway to get the cd key and make it not need activating?

[Wile E]

Hi,
When I bought my last computer about a week ago(quickest upgrade ever) lol I bought it off ebay and sold for profit.. yeah well it had a copy of vista pirated in it. Is there anyway to get the cd key and make it not need activating?For Vista? I haven't the slightest clue.

For XP Pro, I have the Corporate Edition with a Volume License Key. I actually got it from my work, as I do some stuff for them on my computer like twice a year. lol. It works out great for me, and is essentially a write off for them, so we're both happy. But as I said, since it's a Corporate version, it needs no activation, just a good key. Volume License Keys (VLK) are the best.

[niko084]

Home lets you use one physical CPU with upto two cores/threads. Pro lets you use twp physical CPU's, with upto four cores/threads total. XP home and pro only support 4GB at most, and its buggy. you need XP64 for 4GB+

What I mean was Pro will automatically balance a dual core, the software doesn't have to directly support it. Unlike home the os will not automatically balance it if the software doesn't support it. We were talking about this in another thread also.

[ktr]

For Vista? I haven't the slightest clue.

For XP Pro, I have the Corporate Edition with a Volume License Key. I actually got it from my work, as I do some stuff for them on my computer like twice a year. lol. It works out great for me, and is essentially a write off for them, so we're both happy. But as I said, since it's a Corporate version, it needs no activation, just a good key. Volume License Keys (VLK) are the best.

Does it pass validation? Wga? M$ banned a large load of corp keys, therefore you cannot update etc...

I have a corp key VL but its for the orginal XP (sp0)...It pretty quick in installing, and then i have to update to SP2. I got the key at my old man's job...while was browsing their network...lol, it passes all validations, wga...clean key. :toast:

[Mussels]

What I mean was Pro will automatically balance a dual core, the software doesn't have to directly support it. Unlike home the os will not automatically balance it if the software doesn't support it. We were talking about this in another thread also.

Nope, thats crap - i'm on a dual core now with home, and my gaming rig has a dual core on PRO - they both work completely the same (both x2 3800+) and there is no difference at all. Home and PRO are identical in terms of OS, they just have a few features removed from PRO - dual core support is not one of them.

How many OS's of Home were shipped with P4 hyperthreading systems from dell and whatnot? THey work just the same. The only XP with updated dual core support was xp64

[Wile E]

Does it pass validation? Wga? M$ banned a large load of corp keys, therefore you cannot update etc...

I have a corp key VL but its for the orginal XP (sp0)...It pretty quick in installing, and then i have to update to SP2. I got the key at my old man's job...while was browsing their network...lol, it passes all validations, wga...clean key. :toast:Yep 100% wga validated. It's not technically a pirated key anyway. An IT friend gave it to me and logged it as belonging to an out of office computer. He just didn't get permission from his boss, so that's the only gray area.