XP activation - makes me activate, but says it's already activated

[KRI!PAL]

I recently bought a second hand computer from a reputed vendor. System is running with Windows XP professional. I’m using this system from past 5 weeks and never had any problem with the same but now it is just irritating me. Today morning when I started the system I got a message saying

“Windows must be activated to continue.”

I simply clicked ok “Activate” but it then says that ‘Windows is already Activate’. This is 1st strange thing. Now when I try to enter Windows, then it says “Windows Must be activate”. This is 2nd strange thing. And if I click on ‘Don’t activate’, then it simply gets turned off. Is it playing game with me?

I have the product key for this OS with me but it is not allowing me to enter as it says already activate when I go to activate it. Is there any solution for this?

[vshori]

Yeah, offcourse it is very strange. Anyway, before we try something on our as you said you bought it from a reputed vendor, I’ll suggest you to better take the system to them and tell them to fix it. Most probably the problem might have started after the system got windows updates. Though you have the Product key, that doesn’t means the system is genuine as the vendor would have installed it.

And if you feel the product key is genuine, then you should better try to format the hard drive and do a clean windows XP install from scratch. This will surely fix the problem if the product key is genuine.