XP Home SP issues

[Lexluethar]

I'm repairing an installation of XP Home on an Asus Eee PC. THe issue is activation. Is there any way to find out what SP (if any) comes with a particular product key?

I have the XP Home product key for the machine (it is on the bottom of it) but it won't work with my XP Home SP3 cd. I believe the reason is the SP. I can't find anywhere how to find out what SP originally came with the computer.

It had SP3 when i got it from the customer, but i need to know what it had when they purchased it so i can use that SP CD to do the repair installation and so the CD key will be recognized.

Problem was windows was toast and a few services had actually been deleted somehow.

 

[KSoD]

Since it is a eeePC it would have to be at least SP2. Since those machines were not even made before then. If it is an early version then it would be SP2.

Your XP Home CD might not be for OEM's.

 

[Lexluethar]

Ya, that is what i've figured as well.

So is there any way based of the CD key to find out what it is associated with?

 

[KSoD]

You would have a better chance going by date of purchase. There is no tools out there available to figure out which SP the serial is associated with since there is really no difference. I use serials from 2 years before SP3 with a disk that has SP3. The difference is OEM and Retail that matter.

 

[Lexluethar]

Got it. Thanks mak.

So i did the repair install and that fixed MOST of the issues with the PC. Issue at this point is internet won't work because the RPC service is unavailable. I try starting it manually through services.mcs and it says it can't find that particular services.

I thought a repair of Xp would resolve this but it didn't. I cannot get an IP addres because in doing an ipconfig /renew you get the error about RPC not running.

Any thoughts?

 

[KSoD]

Interesting. That is a new one. Have you run MBAM and Combofix on the PC?

 

[Lexluethar]

Spybot yes. Malwarebytes is giving a weird error code - i'm at work so i'll have to update tomorrow.

I thoguht the same thing which is why i ran an updated spybot (did spybot because you can update it with a file so it isn't required to be on the internet, opposed malwarebytes requires internet to update).

After a few scans and fixes spybot comes up with nothing. It is wierd though:
-if you do a ipconfig with nothing attached you get a 'media disconnected' error
-if you do an ipconfig with ethernet cord plugged in you get a 0.0.0.0 IP and a media disconnected for the wireless
-if you do an ipconfig /release it says you can't release it because it has no IP
-if you do an ipconfig /renew it says it can't renew because the RPC service (or server can't remember) hasn't started

I would just reinstall and forego this trouble but as my first posts elluded to, i don't know which XP Home edition to install for the sticker that is on the back of the netbook.

 

[KSoD]

You should be able to just use an XP Home OEM copy with SP2. Like i said i have serials from up to 4 years ago that i use with brand new XP SP3 CD's with no issue. So the serials are compatible as there wasnt a major change in the software from SP2 to SP3. If it was a SP1 serial, then i would say you need that disk. As the SP2 was the major update.

 

[Lexluethar]

Okay, i'll get the OEM then. I haven't gotten that far yet - i was just asking because a last resort will be reinstallation if i can't resolve the RPC service issue.

 

[Lexluethar]

So i've determined that all services dealing with networking have somehow been toated on this machine - more than likely by a virus or malware. DCHP, DCOM, RPC and all other networking services don't work and when you try to start them you get an error 2, service not found.

i'm backing up the files off the hard drive then will reinstall XP Home.