Rich's Tongfamily (Richtong.net add-on)

Sniptools ?| Tips/Tricks | Reinstall Windows XP without product activation. A bunch of my XP machines are getting random crashes. With the NTFS file system, it is easy to corrupt things and one machine is now dead.
Things chkdsk fine, but that doesn’t mean the operating system files themselves aren’t corrupt. So what to do. Reinstall is the classic first solution.
Here are some guidelines:

First trick is that if you reinstall, then XP will ask for product activation all over again (deja vue). So here’s how to avoid it. Hattop to “Sniptools.com”:http://valut/reinstall-windows-xp-without-product-activation.htm
# Copy the file c:\windows\system32\wpa.dbl to a floppy.
# Reinstall Windows XP.
# Boot to a DOS disk if you are using FAT, or to the Recovery Console if using NTFS.
# Copy the file from the first step above back to c:\windows\system32.
# That’s it – because all of your hardware is the same as before, your copy of WinXP is still valid according to the previous activation.
“Mark Pilgrim”:http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/08/04/xp also has some great instructions for the five hour reinstall of XP that is normally required. Its a great read!