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Thread ID: 49496 2004-09-21 02:28:00 XP reactivation: disabled agent (30) Press F1
Post ID Timestamp Content User
274293 2004-09-21 02:28:00 I just replaced an IrDA adapter in my computer with an old ISA network adapter. Upon booting, I bridged my two NICs to form one connection.

Funnily enough, after next rebooting, I got a terrible popup informing me that I had made "significant" hardware changes since my last activation. Maybe Microsoft things legacy devices make significant changes?

But the point is that I now have three days to reactivate my computer, but since I'm not too fond of Microsoft, I've taken many steps to disable all sorts of crap, the product activation executable being one of those.

I'm now in a sticky situation, as I can't recall the program I used to disable it, and hence cannot re-enable it.

;\
agent (30)
274294 2004-09-21 02:53:00 ah why did u bridge them?? ones for infra red? the other is a network card. Spacemannz (808)
274295 2004-09-21 03:07:00 > ah why did u bridge them?? ones for infra red? the
> other is a network card.
The infra red card has been removed and replaced with another NIC, the new NIC and an original NIC have then been bridged.
Pete O'Neil (250)
274296 2004-09-21 03:37:00 There may be a way of returning to the previous situation if you have a file called wpa.bak in c:\windows\system32.

Restore the IR adapter, boot into Safe Mode with Network, and rename wpa.bak wpa.dbl.

That may put you back as you were and be re-activated, but I'm not sure about the bridging.

Though if you have used a file cleaner that has wiped .bak files, then this may not be feasible.
Terry Porritt (14)
274297 2004-09-21 03:39:00 I'm not too fond of Microsoft
I'm not too fond of KFC, so I don't eat it.

I've had this happen to me once before, unless you can apply the right fix you will have to go through the activation process.
Screw it up & you will have a real job to get back in.
It can be done, but here is not the place to discuss it.
Make life easy & activate
45South (4769)
274298 2004-09-21 04:54:00 Thanks for the tip Terry, I'll look out for that in the future.

However, I found a program called XP AntiSpy which appears to be what I used, since it has options to disable the DLLs used by WPA. I ended up talking to a Microsoft customer service representative on the phone (sounded like Microsoft have outsourced) and reactivating successfully.

45South, I'm not quite sure what you're on about, because unless DSE have taken to selling pirated copies of software, I am running a legitimate version of XP. Since I paid over $300 for it, I feel that I have the right to mess with it as much as I like, hence why I muck around with a lot of settings and disable things I don't specifically need.
agent (30)
274299 2004-09-21 05:18:00 I feel that I have the right to mess with it as much as I like, hence why I muck around with a lot of settings and disable things I don't specifically need.

Me too, hence I run XP Antispy myself
In my original response (which I changed) I was going to ask if you had it installed.
I wasn't suggesting you had a pirate copy, my inference was there are dozens of programs that will fool around with with the wpa & unless you use the same program to reverse the process you might end up in trouble & lock yourself out all together

I feel that I have the right to mess with it as much as I like
You might want to read the license agreement on your DSE copy
45South (4769)
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