On Mon, 28 May 2007 09:22:02 -0700, mjd
discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I have a bit of a complicated problem that I hope has a simple answer.
>
>I have a laptop that required a system repair. However, the original XP disk
>is pre-SP2. I made an XP+SP2 disk from that copy, but it is not bootable.
>I
>tried to boot with the original XP disk and swap in the XP+SP2 disk when it
>came to the user agreement, but that hung during load up after switching the
>disks.
>I have another copy of XP post-SP2, so I used that to run the system repair,
>which seemed to work fine. I didn't think, however, about the license issues.
>That license is already registered to another computer I own
No, that's not correct. First, you presumable mean "activated," not
registered." Registration is a completely optional procedure used by
Microsoft only for marketing purposes.
Second, activation doesn't tie a CD to the code, it ties the hardware
to it. The code isn't on the CD, and assuming that the CD is of the
same type (Professional vs. Home, Retail vs. OEM, Full vs. Upgrade),
you can use any CD.
>and I cannot log
>onto Windows now on the laptop without registering that license again - which
>I'm pretty sure I'm not supposed to do!
Nope, not correct.
>I want to roll back that installation of XP to the original system, or
>somehow reinstall the other (older) XP+SP2 over the top of it, but wanted to
>get some advice before going forward (and, if it all possible, retain all of
>the original data so I don't have to reinstall everything and recover all of
>the data from backups).
You shouldn't have to do anything.
--
Ken Blake, Microsoft MVP Windows - Shell/User
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