i've just discovered today that all xp keys may no longer be blacklisted while i was toying around with xp activation. you could try a generic xp retail key or any key that works with your edition and use it for phone activation. i've tried this on xp x64, xp home edition retail, professional retail, office 2003, and office xp and they all successfully worked with even the most generic keys. i've tried to find the most known key ever and i've even took an example key from microsoft's website that was intended only for installing xp and not activation but even that works with phone activation. can somebody tell me whats going on???? you could try this by using microsoft self-service activation with a vpn, an external website that deals with this or by doing the traditional phone call yourself.
could this be because all the xp keys had run out of use and all of them were expired so microsoft decided to whitelist all of them and make them activatable indefinitely???
i've even installed all the updates including the windows genuine advantage tool checker or something and none of them said a thing about activation or the key being invalid or not passing genuine checks. all of them said it was genuine. its only when i remove the activation, it starts whining to me that windows is not genuine but then when i activate it again, it starts working normally.
I'm sure this was not the case before (I recall XP WGA failing to validate back in 2014/2015). But seems like they don't keep track of used keys for XP anymore, at least according to my experiences these past 2-3 years. Maybe they shut the DB down?
the thing is i think this problem was much more recent than i think it is. i've seen a video from a guy attempting to activate windows xp over the phone in november 2020 but failed because he apparently didnt use a valid product key. i also remember all the way back in november 2019, i had an xp vm and i once used a key that was in a yt video that was never blacklisted and the online activation servers were actually up. the key activated successfully but when i tried it again, the key became used and i couldnt use it anymore since it was used many times. it was possibly early november 2019 or late november 2019.
WTF. I JUST USED A VPN AND IT ACTUALLY LET ME CONNECT TO THE ACTIVATION SERVERS. I USED THE SAME KEY I FOUND BACK IN NOVEMBER 2019 AND IT ACTIVATED THROUGH THE INTERNET. now after using the vpn, windows activation is somehow picking it up without the vpn after using it and im able to activate. edit: it wasnt the vpn, it was the root certificate update that fixed it.
sorry for caps, i was kind of astonished. i've used the generic product key and it gives me an unauthorized product key message instead. so, i think the keys are INDEED still blacklisted but can still be activated using the telephone. i wonder why, lol.
nvm, the vpn was not what fixed the activation from successfully activating online. i mistakenly thought the vpn was what fixed it because i used it for microsoft office 2003 and it seemed to activate everytime i use a vpn otherwise it would tell me it would fail to even connect to the servers. it was the root certificate update that fixed it.
so, in conclusion of playing around with xp activation. online activation will only work if you have xp sp3 and have the root certificate update installed, then it should activate. online activation will however still refuse to activate with blacklisted keys and recognizes them, so you'll need a valid product key that isnt blacklisted. having sp0, sp1, or sp2 with the root certificate update installed will fail because they dont support such certificate types from the update thus not working with it and not being able to activate online. i assume telephone activation used to work properly before and used to not allow blacklisted keys but maybe somewhere in december 2020-2021 march, they decided to allow blacklisted keys for every xp edition, office xp, and office 2003 or any microsoft product that has microsoft product activation that works similarly to windows xp's WPA older than office 2007 i think. however, office 2003 and office xp online activation dont seem to have keys blacklisted (they prob had blacklisted keys but prob microsoft did something about it just like xp) and should activate through the internet but you may need to use a vpn and connect as the united states or/and perhaps also use the root certificate update. they also might have done something to windows genuine advantage notifications or validation tool where they may have changed their servers to allow blacklisted keys as well because i tried using an xp volume license key that i've heard was blacklisted by microsoft but received no piracy messages or anything even though i installed the windows genuine advantage validation and notification updates, it just said it was genuine. also, update. i forgot to mention that you also need sp2 for windows xp x64 editions or windows server 2003 in general and a specific update for sha-256 so that the certificates can work. Windows XP SP2 x64: KB2868626 Windows Server 2003 SP2 x64 and x86: KB3072630 you can find these in windows update OR through the catalog website for updates.
UPDATE: they might've taken down activation servers for good now OR they just have a temporary server outage. i get a special message when i try activate now. UPDATE #2: telephone activation no longer works either, im either suspecting that microsoft has now become aware of this issue with blacklisted keys working, etc, and is prob trying to fix it OR they completely shut down activation servers indefinitely. or maybe its just a random server outage that just happened? but then i wouldnt think its a random server outage when activating with telephone no longer works anymore and tells you it cant validate your installation id, surely microsoft is doing something about it. i wouldnt think microsoft would shut off activation servers for no reason. people still use xp and it wouldnt make sense for microsoft to really shut them off if nobody cant activate their retail copies anymore even though it just worked before and they havent been selling xp anymore for a long time. i didnt even think they would care to do anything about the servers, lol. hell, i think microsoft could be watching this thread rn or have seen it at some point.
You can be absolutely sure that Microsoft is watching these forums. Public exploits involving individual keys are usually short-lived.
anyways, if they stopped activation, i dont think i would care much since theres still oem bios activation and antiwpa and the method of converting your xp x64 retail install to volume licensing, that is if you dont let sfc replace modified volume license files with retail files and use the volume license edition of xp cd for sfc to scan and get missing files back into dllcache then you would be fine. if i didnt post this thread, maybe this would've stayed but telephone activation didnt use to be like this and i think it blocked keys before i posted this or knew about this problem. im guessing it was unintentional change or maybe because the server was running for too long and something happened but they didnt notice anything till now. i posted this thread because i was kind of confused at whats happening and wanted to ask people if thats really normal. i assumed microsoft was literally giving out free windows xp to everyone, i guess im wrong. i guess its a good thing that microsoft is perhaps fixing it now because thats not supposed to be happening.
nope, activation servers just went online and i could still activate with the same thing. i thought something was going on but maybe now that the servers are on, im prob thinking that microsoft is still watching this thread and tricking me by starting it up to see whats happening when i activate it again as if im a testing ground, lol, i'll wait until they pull the final plug on this bug/error in activation all of a sudden or maybe after all this time, it was just a normal server restart cause it was running for too long and im just acting stupid. but then if it really was, why would it take that long to restart it? maybe cause they forgot? well, anything could've happened.
Activation servers are used for multiple OS. XP is still supported (provided XP supports the necessary TLS encryption preconditions). Whenever they fix or update anything, servers are restarted, and XP services go down, too. Why they keep it kinda alive? Well, there might still be privately supported business XP machines with special contracts. Plus, they probably don't want to release an XP patch that kills Product Activation, as this might lead to a renaissance of XP.
is that why windows update is still alive because its also secretly being used for special businesses?
i thought xp had separate servers, i didnt think it would be all in 1 huge server that has all windows versions of activation + office + other older software that had microsoft product activation.
it seems that microsoft has found out the key i use for telephone activation in windows xp pro sp3 and using it for telephone activation will simply give me this error message. plus, this specific key seems to be blacklisted in a weird way instead of telling me to get a genuine copy, it tells me it cant validate instead. also, other keys will work just fine. you know the key you would find in /i386/unattend.txt for the retail msdn iso of windows xp professional service pack 3? yeah, that key will no longer be able to let you activate for telephone. the key that i have memorized and always used for telephone activation wont work anymore, lol.