Date: April 30th, 2008

Author: Brien Posey

For most Microsoft Windows XP installs, you’ll never need to worry about the validity of the product key assigned to your copy of the OS. However, software does tend to get installed without authorization, even in the most carefully managed shops, and so from time to time you may need to reset the Windows XP product key.

For example, perhaps a user installed a pirated copy of XP but now wants to go legal. Maybe you’ve been hired by an organization that installed 100 pirated copies of XP but now has a legitimate volume-licensing key (VLK). Perhaps an end user purchased an additional retail license for XP but needs to use his original CD to install the software. When situations like these arise, changing XP’s product key is often the most practical-or only-solution.

Determining if you have a valid product ID

Hopefully you already know if you’re dealing with a pirated copy of XP. But if you’re unsure, a quick way to tell is to install Service Pack 1. Shortly after releasing Windows XP, Microsoft realized that most pirated XP installations were using two specific VLKs, the most popular of which begins with “FCKGW.” These VLKs produce product IDs that match either XXXXX-640-0000356-23XXX or XXXXX-640-2001765-23XXX, where X is any number.

If you try to install SP1 and get the following error message:

The Product Key used to install Windows is invalid. Please contact your system administrator or retailer immediately to obtain a valid Product Key…”

You are dealing with a pirated copy of Windows. For more information about obtaining a valid product key, see Microsoft Knowledge Base article 326904.

You can also directly check the operating system’s product ID by right-clicking on My Computer, clicking Properties, and selecting the General tab. The machine’s product ID will be located under the Registered To section. If the ID matches either of the two models commonly associated with VLK fraud, you’ll need to obtain a valid XP product key before proceeding. None of the procedures described below will work without a legitimate product key.

Two methods of changing Windows XP’s product key

You can change a Windows XP installation’s product key either by editing the registry or by using one of two Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) scripts. The registry editing method is outlined in Knowledge Base articles 321636 and 328874 and works on Windows XP Home, Windows XP Professional, and Windows XP Corporate Edition.

The script method is outlined in article 328874 and is designed to work on Corporate Edition installations that use a VLK and do not require activation. It may work on a Home or Professional installation, but I have not tested this scenario.

The script method is the practical solution for changing the product keys on a large number of machines. Regardless of the method you choose, make sure to backup important data before changing a product ID, since an unexpected problem could render the machine unbootable and necessitate a complete reinstallation of Windows.

 

Warning

The following instructions involve editing your system registry. Using the Windows Registry Editor incorrectly can cause serious problems that require the reinstallation of your operating system and possible loss of data. TechRepublic does not support problems that arise from editing your registry. Use the Registry Editor and the following directions at your own risk.

 

Editing the registry

Begin by opening the Registry Editor and navigating to

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindowsNTCurrent VersionWPAEvents

In the right pane, right-click the ODBETimer binary value and select Modify. Change at least one character of this value to either a number from 0 to 9 or to a letter from A to F, then click OK and close the Registry Editor. This renders the current product key invalid and deactivates Windows.

Now, it’s time to reactivate Windows using your new product key. Click Start | Run and enter the command:

%systemroot%system32oobemsoobe /a

where %systemroot% is your Windows directory. In many cases, this command will look like:

C:windowssystem32oobemsoobe.exe /a

At this point, Windows will launch the Product Activation Wizard.

Figure A

Product Activation Wizard

Select the option to telephone a Microsoft customer service representative viagra for sale without prescription to activate Windows, as shown in Figure A, and click Next. Now, select the Change Product Key option and enter your new product key as shown in Figure B. Finally, click Update and close the window. If Windows returns you to the previous screen, just select the Remind Me Later option. When the wizard is finished, reboot the system.

Figure B

Enter new product key

When Windows reboots, your next step will depend on which Windows XP version you are using. If you have XP Home or Professional, you’ll be prompted to reactivate your copy of Windows through the normal activation process. If you have XP Corporate, no activation is required and your machine should have a valid product ID. You can verify this by running the %systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a command again. When the wizard loads this time, you should see a message indicating that your copy of Windows has already been activated.

Using a WMI script

Although the registry editing process is effective, it can be tedious and impractical if you need to change the product key on more than a few machines. So Microsoft provides two WMI scripts, one for XP machines with SP1 and one for XP machines without SP1.

1. View the code for the WMI script, ChangeVLKey2600.vbs, designed for use on XP machines without SP1.
2. View the code for the WMI script, ChangeVLKeySP1.vbs, for XP machines with SP1 already installed.

Copy the appropriate script’s code into a text file and save it as either ChangeVLKey2600.vbs or ChangeVLKeySP1.vbs. The scripts can act in conjunction with a valid product key as part of a login script to change the product ID on multiple machines. You can also execute the script from the command line to change the key on a single computer.

For example, if you wanted to change the product key on an XP machine without SP1 and had already saved the script to root directory on the C: drive, you would click Start | Run and enter the following command:

C:changevlkey2600.vbs xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

Of course, xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx in this scenario is a valid product key.

The script should take only a few seconds to run and won’t prompt you for further action unless there’s a problem, such as an invalid product key. As with the registry editing method, you can verify that Windows is now using a valid product key by running the command:

%systemroot%system32oobemsoobe.exe /a

The Product Activation Wizard will load and should tell you that your copy of Windows has already been activated.

I spend a lot of time copying and moving files between folders. More often than not, when I click on a file in Explorer, I want to copy or move it to another folder. That means I spend a good deal of time dragging files around or copying and pasting them.

But with a Registry hack, you can save yourself time: you can add Copy To Folder and Move To Folder viagra directions for use options to the right-click context menu. When you choose one of the options from the menu, you browse to any place on your hard disk to copy or move the file to, and then send the file there.

To add the option, run the Registry Editor [Hack #68] and go to

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\AllFilesystemObjects\shellex\ContextMenuHandlers

shellex tells you it's a shell extension key that lets you customize the user shell or the interface.

Create a new key called Copy To

Set the value to

{C2FBB630-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Create another new key called Move To

Set the value to

{C2FBB631-2971-11d1-A18C-00C04FD75D13}

Exit the Registry. The changes should take effect immediately. The Copy To Folder and Move To Folder options will appear. When you right-click on a file and choose one of the options, you'll be able to move or copy the file using a dialog box like the one shown in Figure 3-20.

Figure 3-20. Specifying a destination using the Copy To Folder option

A device driver, or a software driver is a type of computer software, typically developed to make the hardware in your computer work. Typically this constitutes an interface for communicating with the device, through the specific computer bus or communications subsystem that the hardware is connected to, providing commands to and/or receiving data from the device, and on the other end, the requisite interfaces to the operating system and software applications. Often called a driver for short, it is a specialized hardware dependent computer program which is also operating system specific that enables another program, typically an operating system or applications software package or computer program running under the operating system kernel, to interact transparently with a hardware device, and usually provides the requisite interrupt handling necessary for any necessary asynchronous time-dependent hardware interfacing needs.

Device driver theory
The key design goal of device drivers is abstraction. Every model of hardware (even within the same class of device) is different. Newer models also are released by manufacturers that provide more reliable or better performance and these newer models are often controlled differently.

Computers and their operating systems cannot be expected to know how to control every device, both now and in the future. To solve this problem, operating systems essentially dictate how every type of device should be controlled. The function of the device driver is then to translate these OS mandated function calls into device specific calls. In theory a new device, which is controlled in a new manner, should function correctly if a suitable driver is available. This new driver will ensure that the device appears to operate as usual from the operating systems' point of view.

Depending on the specific computer architecture, drivers can be 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, and more recently, 64-bit. This corresponds directly to the architecture of the operating system for which those drivers were developed. For example, in 16-bit Windows 3.11, most drivers were 16-bits, while most drivers for 32-bit Windows XP are 32-bit. More recently, specific 64-bit Linux and Windows versions have required hardware vendors to provide newer 64-bit drivers for their devices.

Device driver development
Writing a device driver is considered a challenge in most cases, as it requires an in-depth understanding of how a given platform functions, both at the hardware and the software level. Because many device drivers execute in kernel mode, software bugs often have much more damaging effects to the system. This is in contrast to most types of user-level software running under modern operating systems, which can be stopped without greatly affecting the rest of the system. Even drivers executing in user mode can crash a system if the device being controlled is erroneously programmed. These factors make it more difficult and dangerous to diagnose problems.

All of this means that the engineers most likely to write device drivers come from the companies that develop the hardware. This is because they have more complete access to information about the design of their hardware than most outsiders. Moreover, it was traditionally considered in the hardware manufacturer's interest to guarantee that their clients would be able to use their hardware in an optimum way. However, in recent years non-vendors too have written numerous device drivers, mainly for use under free operating systems. In such cases, co-operation on behalf of the vendor is still important, however, as reverse engineering is much more difficult with hardware than it is with software, meaning it may take a long time to learn to operate hardware that has an unknown interface.

In Windows, Microsoft is attempting to address the issues of system instability by poorly written device drivers by creating a new framework for driver development known as Windows Driver Foundation (WDF). This includes UMDF User Mode Driver Framework that encourages development of certain types of drivers – primarily those that implement a message-based protocol for communicating with their devices – as user mode drivers. If such drivers malfunction they will not cause system instability. The KMDF Kernel Mode Driver Framework model continues to allow development of kernel-mode device drivers, but attempts to provide standard implementations of functions that are well known to cause problems, including cancellation of I/O operations, power management, and plug and play device support.

Device driver applications
Because of the diversity of modern hardware and operating systems, many ways exist in which drivers can be used. Drivers are used for interfacing with:

Printers

Video adapters

Network cards

Sound cards

Local buses of various sorts – in particular, for bus mastering on modern systems

Low-bandwidth viagra 100mg tablets I/O buses of various sorts (for pointing devices such as mice, keyboards, USB, etc.)

computer storage devices such as hard disk, CD-ROM and floppy disk buses (ATA, SATA, SCSI)

Implementing support for different file systems

Implementing support for image scanners and digital cameras

Choosing and installing the correct device drivers for given hardware is often a key component of computer system configuration.

Virtual device drivers
A particular variant of device drivers are virtual device drivers. They are used in virtualization environments, for example when an MS-DOS program is run on a Microsoft Windows computer or when a guest operating system is run inside e.g. VMware. Instead of enabling the guest operating system to dialog with hardware, virtual device drivers take the opposite role and emulate a piece of hardware, so that the guest operating system and its drivers running inside a virtual machine can have the illusion of accessing real hardware. Attempts by the guest operating system to access the hardware are routed to the virtual device driver in the host operating system as e.g. function calls.

The virtual device driver can also send simulated processor-level events like interrupts into the virtual machine.

Have you ever formatted your hard drive and installed a fresh copy of Windows? I know I have several times. Everyone will have to go through that process from time to time and it can be quite a hassle. Well, today, I have a free download for you that will save you a ton of time the next time you need to reinstall Windows. The program is called DriverMax and it will eliminate some of your worst headaches!

DriverMax does something that I have never seen before. It can create an archive of all your device drivers. By doing that, you don't have to worry about hunting down disks and downloads for all of viagra 100mg dosage the hardware on your computer. You simply run DriverMax, click Export Drivers, select the drivers you want to backup and then let it work its magic. DriverMax will save all of those hard to find device drivers for you in one folder. You can then store them on a flash drive or burn them to a disk so that you will never have to search for them again!

Then after you format and reinstall Windows, simply insert the disk or flash drive that holds your drivers. You can then tell your computer to look on the flash drive or CD for the missing drivers. If you want to make it even easier on yourself, you can reinstall DriverMax on your computer after you're done and have it install the drivers for you. After installing DriverMax, simply click Import and tell it where to locate the drivers file. It will then handle the rest!

I love this program and I only wish I would have found it sooner. It would have saved me so much time!

You can read more about DriverMax and download it for yourself right here.

Note: This program has a free registration process. You will be required to provide an e-mail address to be able to access the program. Also, it's compatible with Windows XP and Vista only. Enjoy!

Date: April 16th, 2008

Author: Greg Shultz

By default, at three o’clock every morning Windows XP’s Automatic Updates tool contacts the Windows Update site and automatically downloads and installs updates for your system. However, that cannot happen if other people who use the computer shut it down at the end of the day. Fortunately, you can prevent anyone from shutting down Windows XP with a little registry tweak. Here’s how:

To enable the setting, close the Registry Editor and restart your system. Once your system restarts, you will not be able to it shut down by clicking the Shutdown button on the Start menu. This will prevent most users from inadvertently shutting down the computer.

When you do want to shut down your system, just access Task Manager by pressing [Ctrl][Alt][Del], then pull down the Shut Down menu and select the Turn Off command.

Note: Since editing viagra 100 mg dose the registry is risky, be sure you have a verified backup before saving any changes. This tip applies to both Windows XP Home and Windows XP Professional.