Windows XP Questions?

[Thorax_the_Impaler]

Hello everyone; I have three general questions about Windows XP.

1. Why is it that, when you go to install Windows XP, you still need to activate the software when, let's face it, XP's imminent death is approaching? Certain programs are starting to drop support for XP; all in all, it's beginning to move where Windows 98 and 2000 are in the world of computer operating systems. So why is Microsoft still so uptight with XP installations when support for it is disappearing?

2. I have consistently read about "master keys" for Windows XP installation disks and I've found a couple "master keys," none of which worked. I've found Windows 98 keys that worked alright, but no Windows XP keys. To my knowledge, the way XP installation disks are setup, there is no "master key" for them. Is this correct?

3. And finally, why is it that installations of Windows become more unstable as you install programs on them? Adding to the question, I have a PC with an XP partition that is just ****ed to all hell, and installing numerous programs on the installation is to blame. What causes this is Windows OS's as opposed to a Linux OS such as Ubuntu, that supposedly doesn't have this problem?

 

[KSoD]

1. It doesnt matter if XP is near death. Even if you installed Windows 95 today it would still require activation. That is how Windows operates.

2. The XP Keys you found on the internet were blacklisted and no longer activate. There is no master key for any version of Windows, it is just that with the older 98 and 2000 serials, they were not blacklisted from the activation servers.

3. I have yet to get a Windows install to become more unstable. I used the same install of Windows 7 from the day it was released till today. I can still boot to it and operate it as if it was done just yesterday. If you take care of your system then it will never get unstable.

Yes some people do get this issue only cause they dont take care of things. They just keep installing stuff, never uninstall anything or do any maintenance to the system at all. Such systems will eventually become riddled with a fubar Registry, infections and many other things that hamper the system. XP is old technology as well. It doesnt have the same setup as the newer systems. In the days of XP things were much different but if you took care of it, it would last you just as long as any version of Linux.

 

[carnageX]

2. The XP Keys you found on the internet were blacklisted and no longer activate. There is no master key for any version of Windows, it is just that with the older 98 and 2000 serials, they were not blacklisted from the activation servers.

Just to add onto what Mak said, only thing I would consider to be anything like a "master key" would be an Enterprise or Corporate version of an OS that has Volume Licensing. Those have "master keys" but it has to be that specific edition of the OS, and a lot of times is tied to an onsite server that it talks back to every few months in order to stay activated (KMS Servers / keys).

 

[strollin]

There was no activation in Win 95 or Win 98. A key was required during install and, it was validated locally, if valid, install continued, if not, install stopped at that point. Once the OS was installed, it was done, no further activation was necessary.

XP was the first MS OS to require activation after installation.

 

[KSoD]

Well if we want to get ultra technical. Windows 95/98/ME didnt activate nor have Windows Update. But they did have serials that were blacklisted.

Windows NT was the first version of Windows that required activation, not Windows XP. Windows NT was a business based model so it never saw home use. It was the first server build. Even so Windows 2000 was released before XP and did require activation as well and that was available for home use. If memory serves, it was NT4 the build released right before Windows 2000 that was the first to use activation.

Just saying if you want to get ultra technical. I was using it as a point to say that no matter what, XP will always have to be activated. That is the way it was designed and coded. You cant defeat that.

 

[strollin]

Nobody is trying to be ultra technical, only accurate. Sorry, but NT didn't require activation either. Neither did Win 2000. As I said, XP was the first MS Operating system that required activation.

 

[Frosty is a Snowman]

Yeah I can't ever remember having to activate NT or 2000, maybe corporate server validated rather than entering a product key, but not online via MS servers etc. at least not that I can remember.
and didn't the whole activation only become forced when they brought in the windows genuine advantage stuff, as you could still install and "active" XP offline using a code that you got "over the phone", which for home users was just a keygen lol

And as for master keys in corporate environments these are still monitored and if used too many times they get disabled, this happened to our work place when one of the techs created a bad image and every machine that we imaged required authentication after imagine, rather than this being done before the image was taken, so MS thought the key had been distributed online due to the high volume of activations when we imaged hundreds if not thousands of computers with windows 7 lol
MS take that stuff serious as well as they send someone out to review our operation and make sure we hadn't broken any licence agreement