To obtain new Volume Licensing product key

[Anas]

I have Windows XP at my home. Whenever I try to install a Service Pack 1 on my system, the following message appears on my screen -

The Product Key used to install Windows is invalid. Please contact your system administrator or retailer immediately to obtain a valid Product Key. You may also contact Microsoft Corporation's Anti-Piracy Team by emailing piracy@microsoft.com if you think you have purchased pirated Microsoft software. Please be assured that any personal information you send to the Microsoft Anti-Piracy Team will be kept in strict confidence.

It seems that my product key is leaked, or may be pirated or illegal.
How do I obtain new product key for my Windows XP ?

thank you...

[jesse]

Follow these steps to obtain new licence product key using Registry -

De-activate Windows -

• Click on Start and then Run.
  
• In the text box in the Run window, type regedit and click OK.
  This will open the Registry Editor program.
  
• Locate the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder under My Computer and click on the (+) sign next the folder name to expand the folder.
  
• Continue to expand folders until you reach the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current Version\WPAEvents registry key.
  
• Click on the WPAEvents folder.
  
• In the results that appear in the window on the right, locate OOBETimer.
  
• Right-click on the OOBETimer entry and choose Modify from the resulting menu.
  
• Change at least one digit in the Value data text box and click OK. This will deactivate Windows XP.

Re-activate Windows and add new product key -

• Click on Start and then Run.
  
• In the text box in the Run window, type the following command and click OK.
  
• %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a
  
• When the Windows Product Activation window appears, choose Yes, I want to telephone a customer service representative to activate Windows and then click Next.
  
• Click Change Product Key.
  
• Type your new, valid Windows XP product key in the New key text boxes and then click Update.
  
• If you're taken back to the previous screen and prompted, choose Remind me later.
  
• Restart your PC.

[Calvin K]

If you want to change the product key for multiple computers, I recommend this method (using a script).
You can create a WMI script that changes the volume licensing product key, and then deploy this script in a startup script.

The sample ChangeVLKey2600.vbs script and the sample ChangeVLKeySP1 script use the new volume licensing key that you want to enter as a single argument. It is in a five-part alphanumeric form.

We recommend that you use the ChangeVLKeySP1.vbs script on Windows XP-based computers that are running Windows XP SP1 and later versions of Windows XP. These scripts perform the following functions:

• They remove the hyphen characters (-) from the five-part alphanumeric product key.
• They create an instance of the win32_WindowsProductActivation class.
• They call the SetProductKey method with the new volume licensing product key.

You can create a batch file or a cmd file that uses either of the following sample scripts, together with the new product key as an argument. You can deploy it as part of a startup script or run it from the command line to change the product key on a single computer.

[Solomon]

If you are not comfortable making changes using registry, there is another option if you need to change your Windows XP product key code.

You can use popular product key finder programs. Some of them are listed below -

1. Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder
2. Winkeyfinder
3. RockXP
4. KeyFinder Pro
5. Keyfinder Thing
6. WinGuggle