[skz]

Hi all,

I'm having a problem with my Dell Mini 9. I updated the BIOS to A4 first. Then I nLited a copy of the XP CD that came with it (though oddly enough it had two in the box), reformatted the Mini and installed the nLited XP. Everything in XP works fine.

That was about a month ago. Now the problem: Windows is telling me that I need to activate it within 5 days. From what I know, using the DELL OEM CD means I don't need to activate. I also have no "Activate Windows" in the Start Menu --> Accessories --> System Tools, nor does it have the little key icon in the system tray. I tried using Run to go through OOBE, but it seems as if my OOBE folder is empty and I have no msoobe.exe (could this be the result of my nLite XP? I didn't delete the OOBE files myself...).

I have absolutely no idea what to do now, so if anyone could help me get Windows activated, it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

[gospeed.racer]

Originally Posted by skz

From what I know, using the DELL OEM CD means I don't need to activate.

That is true, the components that make that happen are the oembios files in the i386 folder on the machine, and the VLK key that is part of the winnt.sif also in the i386 folder. I have not had a Dell, with those files in there, that didnt pre-activate and never complain again. If those files exist, where I said they should be, then I can only assume it is something that was removed during the Nlite.

Personally I am not a fan of nlite at all. I slipstream all my service packs, WMP11, IE7, DirectX, all that good stuff before i burn. I disable Pagefile and turn off system restore. After install I have 2.5gb left (out of the ~3.5gb reported). For me, it is useless to remove stuff with Nlite when you can keep functionality and still have a small footprint.

[skz]

Well, problem solved. I managed to find a download for the OOBE files (albeit in Portuguese) and activate Windows through that. Hopefully it won't bug me again in 30 days or so.