I used my win 98 cd to upgrade my friends system to XP. I know, I know it was wrong but he could not afford the 200 bucks for the full version but now I want to switch from 98 to XP does anyone think I can still use my 98 cd or does microsoft know that my 98 has been used to upgrade to XP already? Will i get some kind of " THIS DISK HAS BEEN USED ALREADY " message? or will i have to fork over 200 bucks for XP, and mybe make my fried pay for half, LOL.

One more thing, Go ahead call me a hypocrit cuz i denounced others for pirating... Im waiting for my other posts to be posted back at me.

Don't worry Nick. We won't give you a hard time. Everyone knows it's only wrong when someone else does it ;-)

Enjoy!
--- Cerbere

No really i dont want to revanp an old topic but I would never copy or pirate a game, This is a bit different it being microsoft, lol.

But what about my question, should i just buy the full version of XP or try my win98 cd with the XP upgrade?

If you don't activate your copy of XP, MS probably won't know how you got there. AFAIK, W98 doesn't transmit any info to MS.

Yea but dont you have to activate it?? If you dont you cant use it after 30 days

I use XP Home and haven't yet activated it. And yes, it is a legal copy.

Do you use it online??

Yep - in fact I'm posting from it right now. And Windows Update works with no problems......other than the ones everyone else gets!

I think there's a 'Volume Edition' of XP tha doesn't need to be activated. And the versions that come preinstalled are already activated.

The 'volume edition' is, I believe, for organisations and corporations. For some reason corporations and large businesses are trusted more than we home users....

It's not that corporate users are more trusted, it's that corporate users wouldn't buy it if they had to had to activate every copy of each MS product they had, every time they installed it. Take Revenue Canada as an example, with over 15000 PC's running day to day, the migration is huge, and not having to activate every product means one less step.
What MS does instead, is applies a special product key to the commercial edition, which belongs exclusively to the company that purchased the key. MS then searches the net for pirated copies, and if they find them, they check the product key, and in theory anyway apply some form of penalty to the offending company, although I haven't heard of them actually trying this yet, and I know there are several different corporate keys floating around cyber space. MS may jack up liscensing fees to offenders of something like that.

Sorry - if there was an emoticon to show 'tongue in cheek' then I would have used it

HYPOCRITE!!! lol j/k. Had to get that out of my system since I remember debating with you in the pirating thread.

but really I have no idea......i would assume that your computer would instantly alert microsoft and a small band of swat team officers who would break down your door and arrrest you. but really, i'm just guessing.

trinity

Well, from what I've experienced I installed an reinstalled it numerous times when it first came out, after the fourth time or so I had to phone up some dude, after it refused to activate again, who gave me a serial number or whatever they call it so it could be activated - typed in the the number given and since then it's been installed and reinstalled in numerous different hardware configurations (inluding different machines) and not once has it refused to activate again.

I've a feeling they possibly have abandoned/changed the activation rules as it was probably giving them a mighty headache or else what the bloke did when I phoned him removed any activation rules they have. Legitmate copy XP Home by the way.