Timothy Murphy wrote: > You (or maybe someone else) keeps saying this, > but does one _have to_ "authenticate" Windows? No. By default, you get a "grace period" of thirty days, and then you will need to activate (or reinstall) Windows XP if you want to keep using it. But you don't *have* to activate it! I understand that some PCs come with Windows pre-activated, and there are some versions that don't need activating at all. For example, there is or was a version which would only work on Dell PCs, which didn't need activating. This one would check that it was running on a machine with a suitable Dell BIOS: machines sold with different OSes would have a different BIOS installed. You certainly *could* activate Windows XP over the phone -- I did that when it was still fairly new. Microsoft hasn't changed the page in question: http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/evaluation/features/activation.mspx . Activation didn't apply for previous versions of Windows. Hope this helps, James. -- E-mail: james@ | I learnt the rules of rugby. There is only one rule. aprilcottage.co.uk | "Skip it by any means necessary". | -- "Nix"
