My niece had bought it at an auction at the bank she works. She gave me the computer.
As per procedure, the Hard Drive was of course wiped clean.
At the avast Forums, I was recommended RestoreDisks.com to acquire the Restore CDs.
Yesterday, using the Restore CDs from RestoreDisks.com, I got the computer running.
I tried to follow the instructions that were sent with the Disks as much as possible.
Unfortunately, the instructions didn't always match what was actually happening on the screen.
Anyway, as per the instructions, I was of course obviously at some specific point there supposed to be prompted to enter the Windows XP Professional 25-character Product Key so that my Windows copy would be fully-functional and legal.
Well, I performed the System Restore TWICE and I just plain ole NEVER got prompted for the Product Key. How can I manually enter the Product Key? Would that be the same thing as Activating my copy of Windows? How do I Activate my Windows? I thought that would have been somewhere in the "System Tools," but I don't see it anywhere.
I mean, my computer seems to be functioning. I made it all the way to being here, logged in on the Net.
But, I'm guessing without the Product Key in place, my Windows will stop functioning at some point, like maybe in 30 days or sooner?
And heck ... probably the Windows Updates won't load and install, right?
How do I correct this problem?
Edited by Chimiti, 29 January 2012 - 09:17 AM.