I have an old WinXP install that is highly customized and set up for a very specific purpose. There is no way I can recreate the same system from scratch because of all of the tweaks. It took me many days to figure out how to successfully migrate from an IDE drive to an SSD. I created an image of the XP installation and used it to create a working dual-boot with Win10 on all new hardware. Everything worked perfectly for 3-4 weeks but it lost activation. I assume because of the hardware changes. I can't get it to activate no matter what I try. It is WinXP SP3, 32-bit. I do not know if it is VOL, VLK, retail or OEM. How can I find out? Also, it may have been originally activated illegitimately but I don't know how to determine. How can I get it activated once again? I already tried changing keys so I may have made matters worse. Also, since it's installed on a SSD and utilizing AHCI, I don't think a repair install is an option because the install disc will not have the correct controller drivers. A repair install will probably undo many of the tweaks and settings too. I did try to boot from an install disc but I got the BSOD with the stop error associated with the IDE/AHCI controller driver issue.
well it obviously is not VLK because VLK does not need to be activated. if you right click on "My Computer" and select properties you will see the product id. if it has "OEM" then it is an OEM edition and I would suggest using the SLP 1.0 method. If it does not say "OEM" then it is a retail copy. There are ways to activate retail but this isnt the forum for that.