No windows activation?

Hey, how come my laptop's windows isn't asking me to activate it? I go into start > programs > accessories > system tools, and "Activate Windows" does not even appear in the list. I know for a fact that's where it would otherwise be located. So it's already activated? how? It's winxp home edition btw.

 

"activate windows" ? New one to me. Never seen it in system tools either.
What does it do?

 

Well, there could be two possibilities:

1.)It's been activated at the factory.
2.)If it's your copy, it could be a corporate edition that does not require activation, although I'm not sure there's a corporate version of XP Home.

 

well basically your copy or XP is OEM which means you can't get support from MS directly (without paying) but don't worry it is a genuine XP install,

just probably installed by your system manufaturer, for support your suppose to contact your system supplyer, but if you make more than 3 or 5 major hardware changes XP will need to be activated,

so if you get a faulty part replace it with the same make and model part and you may be able to fool XP into thinking you havn't made any hardware changes

 

same with me, I have istalled XP home on my laptop. It asked me to activate windows first time only when I logged into windows(just before that) but never again. I have tried looking into system but cant find it.

 

Hmm, activated at the factory? But if that were so, how would I be able to recover it? I have already recovered it (which means it formats and reinstalls everything to how it was out of the box), and still no activation needed.

Okay, donkey, so if I upgrade my memory, for instance, Windows won't make me activate it then, will it? It says on the sticker still on my laptop that my memory is expandable to 768MB.

 

I think they must be looking for something which cant be changeable like a physical IP address.

 

well the simple answer is i don't know, it depends on how many upgrades you make, but you'll will be able to activate XP over the phone, it also depends exactly what XP defines as a "major" upgrade e.g. XP requires reactivation if you use third party software to add another partition (unhiding an existing partition on XP requires reactivation) i just don't know about RAM, it depends how XP classes a memory upgrade, but i think you'll be fine uping your RAM XP mind