XP says I need to reactivate XP in 3 days, but won't let me. (1 Viewer)

[Jeff Jacobson]

I've been having some problems with my computer recently.

I ran the System Configuration Utility (msconfig) and selected "Diagnostic Startup" from the "General" tab. It said I needed to restart the computer for the changes to take effect, so I did.

After restarting the computer, a message box came up saying that the hardware configuration had "changed significantly", so I needed to reactivate Windows XP in 3 days. (I hadn't installed any new hardware or anything, either.) When I chose to "Reactivate now", the message box just went away and nothing happened.

When I selected "Activate Windows" from the start menu, I got an error message:



I've already scanned for viruses with AVG and for spyware with Ad Aware. What do I do now?

 

[Christ Reynolds]

you could try scanning for spyware with spybot search and destroy, it finds much more garbage on my computer than ad aware. i'm not sure what it could be, maybe spybot can pick up something that ad aware is missing. good luck.

CJ

 

[Jeff Jacobson]

I got the Activation Wizard working again by running System File Checker (SFC).

I guess the hardware change that windows detected must have been when I uninstalled and reinstalled my LAN card in the Device Manager. (I was trying to get a LAN between two computers working.)

I tried Spybot S&D and it did find some things that Ad Aware missed.