There is a problem with that, because Microsoft have recently changed their licensing policy for XP (amongst others).
Now unless you have the ORIGINAL disk supplied with the machine, or can create a keyed disk from the rescue partition of a machine (which becomes impossible if it's so riddled with malware that Windows won't run) you can't reactivate Windows.
If you use a different Windows disk, even if your machine has a valid certificate of authenticity sticker on the side, it will fail to pass "genuine product authentication" - and Microsoft are now refusing to re-authenticate because they say they've changed the rules to say if you don't have the original disk supplied with the machine, you MUST buy a new license.
They have no intention of making it more simple.
Case in point: I often see computers come in for repair that need a reinstallation. Where this is the case, we go ahead and reinstall from a disk we hold here providing there is a valid certificate of authenticity on the case or the customer can provide one.
Recently, Microsoft stopped allowing the validation of that. The disk we were installing from would still accept the certificate of authenticity number on the side of the case, but then failed to activate.
Microsoft's explanation for this is that you can no longer reinstall windows from ANY disk except the one originally supplied with the machine (convenient for Microsoft if, like many computers these days, it didn't actually come with physical disks but instead allowed the user to create "rescue disks" if they could figure out how) and that if you no longer have or never were provided with the original disk that came with the machine, then you have to buy a completely new license from scratch.
This is a complete rip-off. If someone has a genuinely installed Windows, then they have bought the license to use one copy on one machine at any one time. This means they should be allowed to reload that one copy from any source should they suffer a machine crash, and should not be tied exclusively to the actual physical disk that may or may not have been supplied with the machine.
The real reason MS licensing is so complicated is so that MS can move the goalposts whenever they see an opportunity to make money. The reason it's so complicated is to hide every new initiative to rip off their customers.
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There is a problem with that, because Microsoft have recently changed their licensing policy for XP (amongst others). Now unless you have the ORIGINAL disk supplied with the machine, or can create a keyed disk from the rescue partition of a machine (which becomes impossible if it's so riddled with malware that Windows won't run) you can't reactivate Windows. If you use a different Windows disk, even if your machine has a valid certificate of authenticity sticker on the side, it will fail to pass "genuine product authentication" - and Microsoft are now refusing to re-authenticate because they say they've changed the rules to say if you don't have the original disk supplied with the machine, you MUST buy a new license.
They have no intention of making it more simple. Case in point: I often see computers come in for repair that need a reinstallation. Where this is the case, we go ahead and reinstall from a disk we hold here providing there is a valid certificate of authenticity on the case or the customer can provide one. Recently, Microsoft stopped allowing the validation of that. The disk we were installing from would still accept the certificate of authenticity number on the side of the case, but then failed to activate. Microsoft's explanation for this is that you can no longer reinstall windows from ANY disk except the one originally supplied with the machine (convenient for Microsoft if, like many computers these days, it didn't actually come with physical disks but instead allowed the user to create "rescue disks" if they could figure out how) and that if you no longer have or never were provided with the original disk that came with the machine, then you have to buy a completely new license from scratch. This is a complete rip-off. If someone has a genuinely installed Windows, then they have bought the license to use one copy on one machine at any one time. This means they should be allowed to reload that one copy from any source should they suffer a machine crash, and should not be tied exclusively to the actual physical disk that may or may not have been supplied with the machine. The real reason MS licensing is so complicated is so that MS can move the goalposts whenever they see an opportunity to make money. The reason it's so complicated is to hide every new initiative to rip off their customers.