frustation in activating xp

[solaris]

i likely know there is no real help for this but i'm frustrated
a couple days ago i did yet another reinstall of xp on this same pc ive had for 2 years, a message came up saying i have exceeded the maximum allowed installs for this pc, i'm like wtf, i paid 200 bucks to be limited cuz thier os has so many problems forcing millions to reinstall everday.
so i called ms activation center, said it will be down for 2 hours, i try again, 2 more hours...second day later i still hear that, i wouldnt normally care but i would really like to clone my partition while it still works properly and is fast, for some reason after a couple days i notice decreases in benchmarks and problems with IE and little things like that for no aparant reason.
i just wanted to know whats with the exceeded install message?
i have no hardware changes since last one

 

[Osiris]

Your only allowed 3 installs then usually you have to call them. If you get the corporate os, you can install it as many times as you want without activating it. Look at this

http://www.techist.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=55090

 

[Tankhead02]

Solution = Get Linux or OS X

 

[SHAWN]

solution = call India and activate it manually

 

[pctech86]

wasn't there a post on the tips and tricks section earlier copy the wpa.dbl from the system 32 folder and that should eliminate the need to activate windows if it has already been installed on your existing machine before you reinstall it

 

[Osiris]

Double-click My Computer
Double-click on the "C" drive
Go to the C:\Windows\System32 folder (you may have to click on the link that says "Show The contents of this folder")
Find the files "wpa.dbl" and "wpa.bak" and copy them to a safe location. You can copy them on a floppy drive or burn it onto a CD or DVD.
After you have reinstalled Windows XP on your reformatted hard drive, click "No" when asked if you want to go ahead and go through the activation process
Reboot your computer into SafeMode (you can either press F8 as Windows is booting up to see the Windows Advanced Options menu and select SAFEBOOT_OPTION=Minimal or follow the instructions in Starting Windows XP in SafeMode
Double-click My Computer
Double-click on the "C" drive
Go to the C:\Windows\System32 folder (you may have to click on the link that says "Show The contents of this folder")
Find the file "wpa.dbl" and "wpa.bak" (if it exists) and rename them to "wpadbl.new" and "wpabak.new"
Copy your original "wpa.dbl" and "wpa.bak" files from your floppy disk, CD or DVD into the C:\Windows\System32 folder
Restart your system (if you followed the directions in Starting Windows XP in SafeMode you may need to go back into MSCONFIG to turn off booting into SafeMode)