Windows XP migration to new machine problems

[AOXOMOXOA]

I have a machine i need to get up and running very badly. This is a XP machine I built 5 years ago.

So the motherboard finally went out, it was an asus p4p800. So i got another machine with an Intel chipset, not the same one but still it is Intel. SO i stuck the hard drive in and ran an windows XP install repair. But now the machine comes up and says it needs to be be activated again before it will boot up. No problem right, wrong.

So it will not boot up to the desktop. I can get it to boot up to the desktop in safe mode no problem. but I cant activate it in safe mode. It will only come up in the normal safe mode. Not safe mode with networking just safe mode. In normal mode it comes up with the message it needs to be activated I say ok and there it sits. it does not bring up the desktop icons.

So being a system builder from way back i figure i will run sysprep in safe mode to reset the activation, well wrong that didn't work and now i'm at the same place.

SO what i need to do is somehow reset the sctivation time from within safe mode so i can get it to boot up normally onto the desktop so i can at least call it in. It's no problem it is a legit windows xp pro so i'm not worried about activating it. but i just cant get it to that point.

this machine is running some kind of time tracking and attendance software that will only run under windows xp and the owner does not have the software discs anywhere. so this machine is really important to get up and running.

Is there any way around this??

[Miuku.]

http://fixit4me.blog...activation.html

Remember doing that for someone in the ages past.

[AOXOMOXOA]

it looks promising, thank you.

I will give it a shot when i get home after work.

[AOXOMOXOA]

It worked..

Thank you so much. your a life saver

[AOXOMOXOA]

well that worked, but now it wont let me activate. it wont even bring up the page or windows update for that matter. it brings up some weird error message. I'm not in front of it at the moment but i will post the error later today. One thing at a time. what a drag.

[Kelxin]

Check to see that the driver for the network card is installed. Different motherboard usually means different nic.

[articuno1au]

I'd be inclined to say you should back up the machine and reinstall.

I'm generally of the opinion when you change major hardware you should do a clean install as a matter of course, but that's entirely up to you obviously >.<

It's just neater that way.

[c.grz]

Create an image and bring it up using Microsoft VirtualPC.

[Kelxin]

It's just neater that way.

and makes the OS run a lot faster. When you rip a hard drive from one system and throw it into another (i.e. changing the motherboard) it changes how every device in the system is allocated, even if the device was in the system before, such as a video card, or an addon network card. When a decide is "missing" from the system, windows doesn't actually unload those drivers, it actually just hides them as temporarily deactivated devices, but are loaded in the background waiting for the device to magically re-appear again. This is the same reason why if you unplug a USB device and plug it into another port, it pops up saying "Installing device driver" but if you put the USB device back into the old port, it simply detects that the device is plugged in.

Create an image and bring it up using Microsoft VirtualPC.

That doesn't always work, I've had hell to pay for the differences in HAL between an old physical machine and a VMWare / Virtual PC / HyperV environment.

My recommendation personally, would be to plug in a USB external hard drive, use NT backup to do a full system image, reinstall from scratch, and use NT backup to pull just the data you need back.

[mduren2445]

unless you like the challenge, save your data on another working pc, nuke it and reinstall. In the long run you are saving time and aggravation. I would make sure any data saved first before something you do or windows f's up the machine

[c.grz]

That doesn't always work, I've had hell to pay for the differences in HAL between an old physical machine and a VMWare / Virtual PC / HyperV environment.

You edit boot.ini to load a different HAL compatible with VirtualPC and that resolves that issue. It has worked for me every time...

/HAL=halaacpi.dll

Adding that works for me.

[AOXOMOXOA]

all of that would be great. but i think you all missed the fact that there is an installed program that must remain intact. If it was up to me i would install XP fresh or better yet windows 7. But this machine is running a very important program and they don't have the ability to re install it on a another machine..

I agree with everyone that this installation of XP is corrupt but if they can run this simple program then all is good. I just need to get it activated and it can sit and run this program forever.

so the image i posted is what happens when you try to either run windows updates or better yet activate the machine. I have never seen this error message before.

[mduren2445]

can you get to safe mode? I think you have an IE6 or 7 problem check this out!

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/iewebdevelopment/thread/e7d8e22a-24c3-4b16-b77c-94e288904fbd/

[B26354]

I found this:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/ie/forum/ie8-windows_other/the-requested-lookup-key-was-not-found-in-any/5fd9fcf1-cac4-411e-a66a-8f19d8b73586

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/iewebdevelopment/thread/cff0ebf0-97ed-49f1-8615-72731914a311/

It looks like it?s related to Internet explorer.

[AOXOMOXOA]

Awesome, This could very well be the issue. I also removed a Trojan and found a Root kit while fixing this crappy machine.

This does make perfect sense.

I will scope this out when I get home tonight.

Another issue it has is that when I right click on things like my computer it brings up the MS installer and tried to install Acrobat. I click on cancel a few times and the thing I was clicking on comes up. I have already looked in the logfiles and found msinstaller but when I try to uninstall Acrobat it fails because it is pointing to a networked location for the program and fails.

I have already tried to install

MSICUU2.EXE and that doesn't do the trick either. Maybe after i kill IE i will try it again.

[Anibal P]

Time to upgrade to modern software, you are probably wasting more time in something that has a really good chance at not ever working and you could be working towards a fairly easy transition to modern software saving you and your company more money in the long run