Friday, May 21, 2010

Reset XP activation

Reseting the Activation Trial:
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In this example: Your activation period has expired, (past 30 days) and you need to get to Normal mode again.

1. Turn On your PC

2. Press F8 repeatedly and go to Safe Mode

3. Logon as per normal
(note: Administrator password is usually blank, but hopefully you know your password)

4. Allow the Desktop to fully load (answering "Yes" to continue into Safe Mode)
(note: This is just a long way of saying go to Safe Mode)

5. Click on Start - Run

6. Type in exactly: rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk (and click OK)
(note: one space, after "rundll32.exe " also the Oo are two letter o's in "oobe"; capitals and comma are important)

7. Wait a couple of seconds (although you will Not see any change)

8. Restart your PC normally (Start - Shutdown - Restart - Ok)

9. You are now able to go to Normal Mode again (For another 30 days !!!)

10. Do whatever you like, you're back to Normal.

This fixed it for me but took me a long time to find this and get it going, hopefully it works for you to.

14 comments:

  1. Thank you! This helped me and was exactly what I needed.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello,

    This used to work, now I get a message that "You must activate" even in safe mode and it will not allow me to log on. Did MS do some type of update?

    Thanks,

    Bryan

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hello,

    I was able to work around it by using psexec from sysinternals (free download). You'll need to install it on another computer that is on the same network as the one that need reactivated.

    Boot the system that needs reset so that it's on the logon screen of XP (normal mode, NOT safe mode), then run the following command from another machine running XP that has psexec installed and is on the same network:

    psexec \\computername -u computername\administrator -p password rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk

    where computername = the remote computer to be reactivated.

    Hope this helps someone.

    Bryan

    ReplyDelete
  4. May god be grateful to this family and thanks keep on sharing more stuff

    Computer Networking Jobs

    ReplyDelete
  5. @ Bryan
    Concerning your second post (April 27, 2011 10:13am).

    Hello, I was able to get yet another work-around that took less steps than you following post. I had same problem as you described. I then decided to try booting into "Safe-Mode Command Prompt" and entered the same exact command in the cmd window. IT WORKED!

    Booting up in Safe Mode, even with networking enabled did NOT work. However, boot with Command Prompt Safe Mode did work.

    Press F8, Choose the Safe Mode "Command Prompt" option. and then enter into the cmd window:

    rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk

    and hit the ENTER key. You will NOT get any indication or feedback that it worked. But it DID work! Now try loading Windows XP again and then activate with correct key! :)

    Hope this helps someone just as this original post helped me while working with my client's computer that had Widnows XP Media Center Edition 2005 on it.

    - Samson

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hello,

    I went through the exact procedure as stated in the first post. But after step 7 i.e. after entering the command in the run dialog, the system shows a error stating "missing SetupOobeBnk". What should i do now?
    Hope to find some breakthrough.
    Thanx

    -Abhas

    ReplyDelete
  7. Hope this works for me

    I'll report back if it doesn't( MABY )

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  8. Thank you KoolSam for your tip, I just had to come back to this issue and in this case the computer wouldn't connect to the network to try my method and your tip saved the day. Thanks!

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  9. not work in my winxp, have another step please..??

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  10. All my XP computers have suddenly began requiring registration as major changes have been made to hardware. No changes have been made in over 5 years. Is this MS way of forcing you to drop XP. If you hit "register now" nothing happens.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I have used rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk three times now the fourth time i has refused, anyone with idea to help please i don't want to reinstall windows because of the software running on this computer

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The link here may explain:
      http://troubleshooting-101.blogspot.de/2012/10/windows-xp-extend-trial-period-rearm.html#.WXWpdZB96F4
      "This process will reset XP trial, and can be done 4 times (120 days).
      If your XP was expired, and you've rearmed it, then you can rearm it 2 more times with this command."

      Delete
  12. Thank you! This helped me and was exactly what I needed.

    ReplyDelete