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(Re)Activating Microsoft Windows XP in 2025 Summary: Microsoft has long since taken down the Activation Servers for Windows XP (and goodness knows what else!). This means that even with a legally purchased license for Windows XP, you can no longer install it and get it to work. It requires activation or else it stops working after 30 days. Happily, all is not lost. There IS a solution, and this post provides both a pointer to the necessary software and the details on how to use it. Post Body: For a vintage computing fan, one of the truly annoying issues we must deal with is that both Adobe and Microsoft have turned off the mandatory activation servers for large swathes of their software, swathes that are still of great value today, or would be, if we could still install and use them. Sadly, we cannot. We can install them, but we cannot use them, at least not for more than (typically) the first 30 days after installation. After that, they demand to be “activated” or else they refuse to operate… hence the choice of the word “mandatory” above. Prior articles have focused on Adobe; this one is about Microsoft, and Microsoft Windows XP in particular. Windows XP is now so “long in the tooth” that it too can no longer be activated, and yet it will not run unless it is. So, long time users who have paid full price for the OS are now just out the money. They have a legal license but the product refused to operate. It is truly maddening. Happily, for Windows XP there is a solution, and I have been able to successfully re-activate my Windows XP. I say “re-active” vs. “activate” because since 2003 I have had a Pentium IV system that came equipped with Windows XP and has run it successfully ever since. Then came a series of age-related hardware faults, not the least of which was a whole series of blown capacitors on its motherboard. After that, things did not work so well, and hard disk corruption began to occur. I am guessing that Windows XP's activation record was among the victims of that corruption, since at just about that time, Windows XP decided that it needed to be activated, and right away, or else. Or else what? Or else Windows XP would refuse to log me in, which is just what started happening. For the immediate term however, this software problem had to take a back seat to the growing hardware problems, and ultimately I had to dissassemble the machine entirely, swap out the motherboard and rebuild the machine around this new motherboard in order to get it back to a stable hardware configuration. Once this was done, and with the hardware now stable, it was time for the software. I started researching the Windows XP activation issue and eventually found many articles about a program call Universal Microsoft Key Toolset, or umstk.exe. This tool was apparently capable of generating the needed activation keys without use of the activation servers; definitely something of interest. Of course, when I went hunting for it, umstk.exe was nowhere to be found. All I found was page after page after page detailing activation solutions, but all of them ended up with a set of links to the same solitary Github web site. There, I could download all the umstk.exe source code I wanted, but no actual executables. Not being Github-friendly, this was not entirely useful to me! The search continued and I finally stumbled across a single solitary page that had executables of umstk.exe for all of DOS, Win9x, WinNT4.0 and even macOS! Given how difficult it was to unearth this set of executables, I immediately downloaded them all and republished them in the DOS, Win9x, WinNT4.0 and WinME archives of this site, so that they are permanently (or for as long as this site is on the air) available from an easy-to-access site. In each archive, just look for UMSTK.ZIP; download it and you will get the full set. All of the umstk.exe variants are reproduced across all of the archives for the convenience of users. So, now that you know where to get this mythical tool, what can you do with it? Well, being DOS-friendly, I loaded the DOS version, umstk.exe, onto the 486DX2/66 DOS/Win machine in the retro-computing lab and at the command prompt typed in the letters in blue below (the black "c:\>" represents the DOS prompt):     c:\> umstk /? ...in oder to learn what parameters the tool accepted. From the resulting output, and from further playing around with Windows XP’s activation dialogs, I learned that the general process is to say “yes” to XP’s request to be activated and then select the “Telephone Method”. At this point, you are asked to select your country of residence and then the XP activation dialog comes back with a phone number for you to call and an “Installation ID” to provide to the customer service agent you speak to. Back in the day, people without internet access could use this whole mechanism to call Microsoft and get their activation ID manually. That was the reason a “Telephone Method” existed. Be forewarned: the Installation ID is a horrendously long number - 35+ digits! With an Installation ID now firmly in hand, I went back to umstk.exe and entered that ID into it via the “-i” command line switch:     c:\> umstk –i ridiculously-huge-installation-ID After a suitable period of thought, the tool came back with another horrendously long number, which I assumed must be the activation ID. However, it was not; it was in fact some sort of confirmation code, and the Windows XP activation dialog was waiting for it expectantly. When I entered it in, that was it – no activation code was needed! This second ridiculously long number WAS the activation code after all. I entered it, Windows XP accepted it, and it has not bothered me about being activated ever since. It may not be elegant, but UMSTK.EXE gets the job done! So, if you need to (re)activate your copy of Windows XP, download UMSTK.ZIP from any of the archives here on the retro-computing.com site and use it and the Windows XP activation dialogs to generate a new “activation ID” and enter it. Done and done - your Windows XP acquires a new life after all! As a closing thought, if only Adobe had such a mechanism available for those of us who are lifelong Photoshop users. Alas they don’t, and I now have to pay monthly for access to Photoshop, despite having paid literally thousands of dollars over the years in Photoshop license and upgrade fees. Anyway, unlike Photoshop, all is not lost for Windows XP. Download umstk.zip and reactivate your copy! Happy (retro) Computing!