How to tell if XP is activated?

[OrbitzXT]

A friend of mine reinstalled my PC for me, I'm not 100% sure if he used a legit copy of XP or a bootleg and I'm trying to find out. I read to type oobe/msoobe /a in the Run command but when I do I get a message saying the following:

Windows cannot find 'oobe/msoobe'. Make sure you typed the name correctly, and then try again. To search for a file, click the Start button, and then click Search.

 

[Frick]

Right click on my computer and look at the product ID. It looks like this:

xxxxx-xxx-xxxxxx-xxxxx

If the second part is 64x and/or the third part has tons of zeroes it's a volume license ie pirated.

 

[OrbitzXT]

Right click on my computer and look at the product ID. It looks like this:

xxxxx-xxx-xxxxxx-xxxxx

If the second part is 64x and/or the third part has tons of zeroes it's a volume license ie pirated.

It's XXXXX-652-3421927-50764. That seems legit compared to your statement? I X'd out the first 5 cause I wasn't sure if this was a number I should be sharing or not . Does this mean XP is activated?

 

[Frick]

That would be a volume license (640 through 652 is volume). You can also just download the WGA tool from Microsoft and see what it says.

EDIT: There might not be a tool for it. I thought I'd seen one once, but it seems like I was wrong. Activate automatic updates maybe? It should whine about not being activated and so on if it's not.

 

[95Viper]

MS How to Tell
Frequently Asked Questions
Validation is as easy as 1-2-3!
Genuine Microsoft Software

Hope one of these web pages will help answer your questions.

 

[Drone]

Does this mean XP is activated?

to find out is xp activated or not open everest and under OS look in Product Activation (WPA) is it "not required" or not.

the easiest way just run sysprep and seal your pc then run it and enter valid key and activate it.

 

[RejZoR]

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine

You can check it here. Make a System Restore point first, because if found that it's not genuine, you'll avoid few problems by restoring it back to a state before this check. But you'll know if it's really legit or not. Installing Microsoft Security Essentials or Windows Media Player 10 is also one of the ways as it checks if OS is genuine. Or just by running Windows Update.

 

[Drone]

^ that genuine check was cracked/hacked/fucked many times so now it's unable to say whether one installed the genuine key or just bypassed the activation, as I said only syprep will do