xp oem version and activation?

[cursief]

is it possible to run (without the need to activate) an oem version of XP under virtualbox? i recieved my xp disc with my laptop and under vmware it needs to activate (which fails) since vmware isn't recognized as the "original" computer.

[cursief]

okay installed the cd but same problem as with vmware. It requires me to activate which doesn't work.

too bad

[coleparmer]

I had to re-activate my XP machine by phone, because the internet method gave me the the cd-key had already activated a computer. This is because during the instalation it has activated automatically, but after that I got a windows message that I have 30 day to activated. For some reason the Windows Xp lost the information that is was activated during the installation.

[Asa]

@ cursief: no. when not activated all legal versions of xp will stop working after 30 days...

@coleparmer: yep. that's a bummer. and you will not get it to activate with the keys you already have on any virtual machine: data gathered from the components of your machine is the basis for the generation of the pair of keys used by mircosoft for activation. now, since a virtual machine (no matter which flavour) emulates hardware other than your physical hardware, the key you'll get on a vm will always differ from the one on your physical machine. i don't know about online activation with a vm, but activation by phone should always work.
remember, however, that doing so will invalidate your key for the physical machine! (due to microsoft's one-licence-one installation-policy... i don't think i can comment on that without violating forum rules, so i won't...).

also, after a certain number of online activation requests (either 3 or 5, i think) you will only be able to activate via phone. unforunately that number is sometimes exceded during first-time install, even (e.g. when only the install of a new driver activates new hardware-features)... again, no comment on that.