Unable to activate Windows XP

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

I'm in the midst of restoring my old Acer Travelmate 4201 back to its original OS of Windows XP Home. Windows 7, while it did run, wasn't a good fit as it'll use 90% of the available RAM at idle. I got XP installed with all the drivers and everything, now what's left is activation and I doesn't seem to want to do this. I'm using the product key on that came with the laptop and I keep getting the error "Can't establish a connection with activation server" (Error message 32777). Got any ideas? Would rather not have to phone Microsoft regarding this.

[Docretier]

2 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I'm in the midst of restoring my old Acer Travelmate 4201 back to its original OS of Windows XP Home. Windows 7, while it did run, wasn't a good fit as it'll use 90% of the available RAM at idle. I got XP installed with all the drivers and everything, now what's left is activation and I doesn't seem to want to do this. I'm using the product key on that came with the laptop and I keep getting the error "Can't establish a connection with activation server" (Error message 32777). Got any ideas? Would rather not have to phone Microsoft regarding this.

Microsoft stopped supporting xp, I’m pretty sure. Even if you did phone them you wouldn’t get a response on what to do.

[thelordofwarr]

I would say that the activation servers aren't online anymore since they cancelled the support for xp, at least that's what I suppose.

[Crunchy Dragon]

Just gonna double check, but it is connected to the Internet right?

 

It might be that Microsoft took down those servers since XP has been EOL for years.

[NTDaws]

Activation servers were taken down a long time ago.

You will have to find a unattended legal installation of Windows XP. Usually older business or schools give them away.

[dalekphalm]

33 minutes ago, BlueChinchillaEatingDorito said:

I'm in the midst of restoring my old Acer Travelmate 4201 back to its original OS of Windows XP Home. Windows 7, while it did run, wasn't a good fit as it'll use 90% of the available RAM at idle. I got XP installed with all the drivers and everything, now what's left is activation and I doesn't seem to want to do this. I'm using the product key on that came with the laptop and I keep getting the error "Can't establish a connection with activation server" (Error message 32777). Got any ideas? Would rather not have to phone Microsoft regarding this.

Phone Activation should still work. While they don't support XP, they should probably still activate it.

 

The phone activation method is automated, so you don't need to speak to anyone, if that's a concern.

 

Though it's possible you might need to speak to a service agent, if the phone activation fails.

[Murasaki]

POSReady is still supported till early 2019 dunno if it applies to activation though

[BlueChinchillaEatingDorito]

45 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

Phone Activation should still work. While they don't support XP, they should probably still activate it.

 

The phone activation method is automated, so you don't need to speak to anyone, if that's a concern.

 

Though it's possible you might need to speak to a service agent, if the phone activation fails.

I'll try that then. Guess it's the only way left. 

 

39 minutes ago, ModuleLFS said:

POSReady is still supported till early 2019 dunno if it applies to activation though

Yea I did that Registry change and it didn't do much either.

[dfsdfgfkjsefoiqzemnd]

This happens because XP by default comes with IE6 and relies on IE to do the activation.  However IE6 just isn't supported anymore.  You simply cannot browse to any website anymore with that browser, even Microsoft's own sites. 

Set Windows to auto-install updates and wait a while (or click the yellow shield in the notifications area once XP has downloaded them so you can install them manually).  Once it has done the first 2 or 3 waves, it will have upgraded IE to version 8 and then it should be able to make connection with the update servers. 

 

I activated two XP installs earlier today, so the servers are certainly still up.  

Actually, considering how fast these activations went and the fact that I used the same OEM key from my old netbook for both, it looks like they're not even checking the key anymore.  I'm thinking that they see it's an XP install and just automatically tell the OS that it's been validated. 

When reinstalling XP on that netbook BITD, I had to do the phone thing almost every single time.  That was on the original hardware, so it certainly should be triggered by the new hardware IDs from my VMs.