ironpham

I've run into this problem a couple of times now for no reason at all seeing as how I'm using my company's XP key. I just wanted to post this to help anyone out who has gotten stuck on this.

After XP expires, the Windows Activation won't let you login. There's a couple of tricks to get an internet explorer running. The first is here: The Tomorrow Times: How to login to an expired Windows. You can also read through some of the comments and they will help you some more.

The trick I'm using now is involves going all the way up to where at asks you to type in a cd key. There is a help link that will bring up an internet explorer. From there, to get the rest of the shell running type in c:\windows\explorer.exe in the address bar. This will give you everything else, though only temporary. To make it permanent, rename explorer.exe to something else (I did explorerx.exe). You also have to modify its registry (start>run>regedit) entry located at HKLM/SOFTWARE/MICROSOFT/WINDOWS NT/CURRENTVERSION/WINLOGON/SHELL. This will allow a permanent explorer. Now you can use your PC as if nothing has happened...except you still have to keep the activate windows thing open or else it will log you off.

As for getting rid of that completely, I'm still working on which method I'm going to try. This is just a quick fix until I decide what I'm going to use.

I hope this helps anyone with this same stupid problem. Microsoft is a bitch.

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