Correlation of key to license number

From: David Erbas-White (derbas_at_arachneering.com)
Date: 10/11/04 

Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2004 21:39:11 -0700

I have several computers at home, running WinXP (both Home and
Professional, depending on the computer). I didn't bother writing down
which computer has which 'key', and I now find myself in the situation
of not knowing which 'license and key' belongs to which computer
(because I didn't paste the sticky things on the outside of the box,
since I sometimes end up upgrading the machines).

For example, I have two different machines with WinXP Pro. And I have
two valid licenses and CDs for them, but I don't know which one goes
with which installation. I need to re-install the installations because
of a virus or trojan or some such, and since the activations do the hash
code with the machine configurations and the product key, I don't want
to mix them up because I don't want there to be problems when I have to
re-activate the product keys. In other words, if I manage to use the
same keys on the machines, the numbers in the activation database should
be close, but if I have swapped the keys, then the numbers would be
wholly different, and I may have problems.

I called Microsoft today and they appeared totally clueless, and just
told me to install WinXP on any machine (since I have the licenses) and
it wouldn't matter...

Any comments/feedback?

David Erbas-White

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