Microsoft does check in after a time period to revalidate the license. I won't discuss this at any length other than to confirm that it's something they did to stop pirates and owners from installing one license onto more than one machine.
There are long and deep discussions about this but rest assured I won't do more than verify that this is now in not only XP but Office.
As to disks, those are not unlike keys to your car. I'd fix that.
Bob
Hello:
Perhaps somone can give me some advice. Last year I bought a new computer and stored away my older fully-functional desktop computer in a closet. Today, I met someone who didn't have a computer and I decided to give my older computer to her. When I set up and turned on the older computer a dialog box appeared before anything else and said that I had to "Initialize the OS" either over the phone or online.
My question is, even though there is no physical internet connection, (and being that she just moved in, one isn't available yet), why would this dialog box appear? I don't remember whether the OS is '98 or XP. Would a year's inactivity cause the appearance of this dialog box? When an internet connection is established, how can it be initialized if I don'r remember any of the properties of the old desktop? I certainly wouldn't have any of its disks available.
Can anyone help me with this dilemma?
Chowhound
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