Thanks to everyone for your replies, since I first posted this message last
night.

I managed to get a "real person" at Microsoft by calling the phone number
listed in http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=295539. (Fortunately, for me it
was before 9:00 PM Pacific time.)

I explained the situation to the first person, who checked the 25 character
Product Key affixed to the Compaq machine. He then escalated me to an
Windows XP Activation support rep.

This rep asked me for both the 25 character Product Key on the Compaq
machine as well as the number shown in the Registered To field -- the one
that displays in Properties after right-clicking on the My Computer icon.
This number was the same as that which shows on my own Dell E520:
76477-OEM-x x x x x x x - x x x x x.

Either the numbers verified my story -- or I just had an honest voice --
but he believed me. :-

He had me go to the following page via Internet Explorer to bring up the The
Windows Product Key Update Tool:
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/sel...3-f178df022063.

I agreed to the I understand this tool will send the above information to
Microsoft message and then clicked on the Download radio button. In the File
Download dialog box, I clicked Run and the application started.

It was a simple process: I inserted the 25 character Product Key from the
sticker on the Compaq machine and was instructed to re-boot. After
re-booting, the Microsoft tech had me click on Start | Run and type in
"oobe/msoobe /a" (without the quotation marks) to bring up the Windows
Activation screen. I clicked on the "Validate by Internet" choice and
received a message stating that Windows had been validated.

As the last step, the rep had me go to the
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/def...displaylang=en where I clicked
on the
Validate Windows radio button.

Everything is now kosher!

Alan



He then had me click on Start | Run. In the command window I typed
"oobe/msoobe /a" to bring up the Windows activation screen. In the space
where it says Enter Product Key if instructed

As expected
"Alan" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I had to do a clean XP Home installation today on an old Compaq Presario
2500 laptop for a client of mine.

Because he had none of the Recovery or XP Installation CDs that came with
the machine, I called H-P to request a replacement set. However, because
the laptop is so old by their standards they had no installation media
that I could buy.

I told the H-P/Compaq rep that I have a Dell OEM Windows XP Home CD that
came with my own machine. He said that XP should install okay using
that -- which it did.

I'm now trying to register Windows XP using the 25 Character XP Code on
the bottom of the Compaq laptop. While I thought it MIGHT just work over
the Internet, it was flagged as being incorrect.

I then called the phone number listed and all I can get is an automated
voice response which tells me -- after I read the 54 character message
code -- that the code is wrong and "I won't be able to validate my
installation right now."

Is there a phone number with a real person at Microsoft, who I can call
and activate this installation?

Thanks very much.

Alan