When Will Microsoft End Windows XP Activation
By Richard Hay for Windows Observer
Richard Hay offers an important follow up to his post about the end of support for Windows XP.–PC Pitstop
Last week I wrote a story about how all the discussion leading up to the official end of support for Windows XP in April 2014 reminded me a lot of the final months of 1999 as the year 2000 approached.
That story, thanks to being featured in last weeks PC Pitstop newsletter, has created quite a discussion over the last few days.
This post has come about because of one of the comments on that story:
What I most want to know is, will Microsoft also be stopping the auto validation system for when I have a full cleanup and want to reinstall from my fully bought and paid-for retail version of XP SP2 ?
A reply to that comment asked a similar question:
This is an excellent point. It didn’t even occur to me that MS might yank the plug on re-installation, although it would be great if someone could speak authoritatively to this point. I see is nothing on MS’s lifecycle page (windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/products/lifecycle) concerning perpetual re-installation.
That got me wondering and I think it is a valid question so I contacted a rep at Microsoft and posed it to the Windows team.
This is the reply I got back from a Microsoft spokesperson:
After XP End Of Support, Windows XP will remain on MSDN and TechNet for customers who still need to activate and re-activate XP (there aren’t new retail copies). We don’t have a date to share around when activation will be shut off, but it will be on for the foreseeable future.
Keep in mind – Article continued here
This excerpt appears with permission from Windows Observer.
