My daughter has a 18 month-old laptop running XP. A month or so ago
she got a computer virus that she couldn't rid of. A computer science
major at her school restored the machine to an early point and
everything was fine, though of course she lost all her documents.
She brought the machine home and I downloaded and installed all the XP
updates, including SP2, w/o a problem. Today, though, the MS Windows
Update web site told us that she had an illegal version of XP. It said
her Volume License Key was listed as pirated.
I tried a number of things and all I can come up with is that the virus
damaged the boot sector on her hard drive. I'm hoping that
reinstalling XP from scratch will fix the problem but I'm not sure.
My questions:
Does my diagnosis sound right? If not, what else mught be happening
and what else could I try?
Would a reinstall of XP fix things or do I need to do something more
drastic like wipe the hard drive first?
TIA.

sethgreeley@hotmail.com wrote:

My daughter has a 18 month-old laptop running XP. A month or so ago
she got a computer virus that she couldn't rid of. A computer science
major at her school restored the machine to an early point and
everything was fine, though of course she lost all her documents.

She brought the machine home and I downloaded and installed all the XP
updates, including SP2, w/o a problem. Today, though, the MS Windows
Update web site told us that she had an illegal version of XP. It said
her Volume License Key was listed as pirated.

I tried a number of things and all I can come up with is that the virus
damaged the boot sector on her hard drive. I'm hoping that
reinstalling XP from scratch will fix the problem but I'm not sure.

My questions:

Does my diagnosis sound right? If not, what else mught be happening
and what else could I try?

Would a reinstall of XP fix things or do I need to do something more
drastic like wipe the hard drive first?

TIA.

Seth,

Gee. A pirated copy of Windows XP on box that some Computer Science
geeks have been playing with? Imagine that.

In all seriousness, the number one rule of computer security is
keeping your S updated. That is hard to do anymore without a valid MS
authentication. If I were you, I would start with a fresh, legal
install of Windows XP on a reformatted HD. This should be an
insignificant cost compared to raising a daughter. Been there, done that.

Ron :)

<sethgreeley@hotmail.comwrote in message
news:1136609913.540117.126490@
My daughter has a 18 month-old laptop running XP. A month or so ago
she got a computer virus that she couldn't rid of. A computer science
major at her school restored the machine to an early point and
everything was fine, though of course she lost all her documents.

She brought the machine home and I downloaded and installed all the XP
updates, including SP2, w/o a problem. Today, though, the MS Windows
Update web site told us that she had an illegal version of XP. It said
her Volume License Key was listed as pirated.

I tried a number of things and all I can come up with is that the virus
damaged the boot sector on her hard drive. I'm hoping that
reinstalling XP from scratch will fix the problem but I'm not sure.

My questions:

Does my diagnosis sound right? If not, what else mught be happening
and what else could I try?

Would a reinstall of XP fix things or do I need to do something more
drastic like wipe the hard drive first?

TIA.

First off, if they went back to a retore point she would not have lost her
documents.
They must have re-installed XP with a Pirate copy, most likely XP Pro Corp
ver.

Keep those hacker dorks away from the computer and take it to a good mom and
pop computer repair place.

Mich

Mich wrote:

18 month-old laptop running XP. A computer science
major at her school restored the machine to an early
point though of course she lost all her documents.

Changing to an earlier restore point would not have resulted in lost
documents.

I downloaded and installed all the XP updates, including SP2,
w/o a problem. Today, though, the MS Windows Update web site
told us that she had an illegal version of XP. It said
her Volume License Key was listed as pirated.

First off, if they went back to a retore point she would not
have lost her documents.
They must have re-installed XP with a Pirate copy, most likely
XP Pro Corp ver.

I agree with this diagnosis. The dorks should have backed up personal
documents before they obviously formatted the drive and re-installed a
pirate version of XP.

I'm not sure what point your system is at, but if you can get it to
ask for a new or different license number, then find the one that came
with the system and enter it.

you may have a non-functional computer in 3 days (or less).

If you have to re-install the S all over again, I suggest obtaining
and installing Win-98. I haven't seen a laptop yet where you can't
obtain all necessary Windows-98 drivers for the various internal
hardware components.

Actually it was simpler than that. As I was turning off the machine,
XP notified me that there were automatic updates ready to be installed.
that was done the problem went away. Apparently, having the
updates already being inplace interfered with the validation process.

So no pirated software. If there had been I wouldn't have been able to
install SP2 in the first place.

Virus Guy wrote:
Mich wrote:

18 month-old laptop running XP. A computer science
major at her school restored the machine to an early
point though of course she lost all her documents.

Changing to an earlier restore point would not have resulted in lost
documents.

I downloaded and installed all the XP updates, including SP2,
w/o a problem. Today, though, the MS Windows Update web site
told us that she had an illegal version of XP. It said
her Volume License Key was listed as pirated.

First off, if they went back to a retore point she would not
have lost her documents.
They must have re-installed XP with a Pirate copy, most likely
XP Pro Corp ver.

I agree with this diagnosis. The dorks should have backed up personal
documents before they obviously formatted the drive and re-installed a
pirate version of XP.

I'm not sure what point your system is at, but if you can get it to
ask for a new or different license number, then find the one that came
with the system and enter it.

you may have a non-functional computer in 3 days (or less).

If you have to re-install the S all over again, I suggest obtaining
and installing Win-98. I haven't seen a laptop yet where you can't
obtain all necessary Windows-98 drivers for the various internal
hardware components.

sethgreeley@hotmail.com wrote:
My daughter has a 18 month-old laptop running XP. A month or so ago
she got a computer virus that she couldn't rid of. A computer science
major at her school restored the machine to an early point and
everything was fine, though of course she lost all her documents.

If she lost her documents, they didn't restore it to an earlier point;
they wiped and reloaded it. Incidently, if they did that to remove a
virus, somebody isn't paying attention in computer scienceand you
said this idiot is a major? sigh.

She brought the machine home and I downloaded and installed all the XP
updates, including SP2, w/o a problem. Today, though, the MS Windows
Update web site told us that she had an illegal version of XP. It said
her Volume License Key was listed as pirated.

That would make sense. Your major malfunction wannabe computer science
dip**** loaded a corp copy with a known bad key. If your going to play
with corp, use good keys Ugh Anyways, they didn't roll back
anything, they reloaded the box with a warez S; your not entitled to
it.

I tried a number of things and all I can come up with is that the virus
damaged the boot sector on her hard drive. I'm hoping that
reinstalling XP from scratch will fix the problem but I'm not sure.

I'm hoping it didn't take you too long to come up with such a half ass
brain dead excuse, reason? for the problem. The virus didn't damage
anything, and most likely; without seeing the machine, it probably
wasn't actually a virus. many times, people will say anything is a
virus.

My questions:

Does my diagnosis sound right? If not, what else mught be happening
and what else could I try?

Your diagnosis is so far off the mark, if points were awarded for
stupidity, you'd be a grand prize winner.

Try reloading a valid S Use the product key attached likely to
the bottom of the laptop, and tell pinhead daughter not to do that
stupid **** again.

Would a reinstall of XP fix things or do I need to do something more
drastic like wipe the hard drive first?

A reinstall of a legal copy of XP will fix it yes.

Regards,
Dustin Cook
http://bughunter.atspace.org

sethgreeley@hotmail.com wrote:
Actually it was simpler than that. As I was turning off the machine,
XP notified me that there were automatic updates ready to be installed.
that was done the problem went away. Apparently, having the
updates already being inplace interfered with the validation process.

So no pirated software. If there had been I wouldn't have been able to
install SP2 in the first place.

Not true. Sp1 and sp2 only blacklist some corp keys, not all.

An easy way to check of your S, is to right click on my computer and
hit properties. If you don't see some EM-more numbers, then
your bootleg.

641, 642, etc in place of EM is a corporate XP.

Your daughter shouldn't have lost any documents fixing the problem.
Clearly the computer science department in her university is a waste of
resources.

Regards,
Dustin Cook
http://bughunter.atspace.org

"Befunge Sudoku" wrote:
At our Uni, CompSci courses don't use or teach Windows. I'm not
sure they consider Windows machines to be proper computers.
No doubt they'd prefer the Manchester Mk.I ;)

"Dustin Cook" <bughunter.dustin@gmail.comwrote in message news:1136928988.701488.275690@

Befunge Sudoku wrote:

At our Uni, CompSci courses don't use or teach Windows. I'm not
sure they consider Windows machines to be proper computers.

What do they teach that gives you the impression a Windows machine
exists? Windows is an operating system And only an operating
system Hmm

I know what he meansbut

I was thinking the same thing. you consider that most software platforms
are capable of running programs that emulate other Ses - that would put any
focus on a particular S outside the scope of CompSci. Unless CompSci isn't
what I think it is. Could he dust off his Turing Machine owner's manual and tell
me what S it is running. :))

Thu, 12 Jan 2006 09:03:34 -0000, Befunge Sudoku
<daviddotbudd@manchester.ac.ukwrote:

>In article <11sap76mitli7b8@corp.supernews.com>, code800
>@elsewhere.invalid says
>>
>"Dustin Cook" <bughunter.dustin@gmail.comwrote in message news:1136928988.701488.275690@
>>
>Befunge Sudoku wrote:
>>
>At our Uni, CompSci courses don't use or teach Windows. I'm not
>sure they consider Windows machines to be proper computers.
>>
>What do they teach that gives you the impression a Windows machine
>exists? Windows is an operating system And only an operating
>system Hmm
>>
>I know what he meansbut
>>
>I was thinking the same thing. you consider that most software platforms
>are capable of running programs that emulate other Ses - that would put any
>focus on a particular S outside the scope of CompSci. Unless CompSci isn't
>what I think it is. Could he dust off his Turing Machine owner's manual and tell
>me what S it is running. :))
>>
>>
>>
>Furrfu!
>It was supposed to be a JKE!

Well, some folks see Windows as a joke. call it a virus. And some folks
here don't have a hella sense of humour anyway.