Can’t Activate XP after a Windows Repair

Today from Louis Warren…

Another pesky Windows issues bites the dust! I have had a few laptops lately that have ran into stop errors or have been corrupted by spyware and will not boot into windows or any combination of safe mode. I then go and insert the appropriate XP CD and do an R” windows repair. It will get pretty much all the way to the end and on the final reboot it will hang. Just power the machine off and reboot.

Windows will load normally and when you log on it will say Windows needs to be activated and when you click yes it will sit there indefinitely and the activation box will never appear.

To fix this reboot into plain old “Safe Mode” not the version with networking because only the vanilla mode will let you in without activating. Once in…

1. Click on Start – Run
2. Type in: rundll32.exe syssetup,SetupOobeBnk (and click OK)
   (note: capitals, space and comma are important)
3. Wait a few seconds as it will be working, but you won’t see any change or a completion prompt.
4. Reboot your PC.
5. You will now be able to log into normal mode.
6. FIRST thing you do when you get in is download (if it lets you) or grab from somewhere else a copy of IE8. Install IE8 and make sure you let it download the updates during the install. This should solve not being able to browse and not being able to activate. The whole activation issues are somehow linked to the broken IE. You can now Windows update etc.

Reference:

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/windows/36512-cannot-activate-windows-after-repair-install.html