SysAdmin Adventures

A little warning.. although it could be related to the specific virtual-hardware setup I am running, Windows XP SP2 OEM will not activate when running as a guest inside VirtualBox v3.1.2 nor will it let you login without activation.

You get to the login screen and attempt to login and it says:
“This copy of Windows must be activated with Microsoft before you can log on. Do you want to activate Windows now?”. If you try and activate Windows over the Internet it will appear to be successful, but log you straight back off again and put you back where you started. If you try and activate over the telephone, there will be no “Installation ID” for you to give in order to activate; this is what I believe to be the root cause of the problem.

The Installation ID is generated from information about your computer including information from the graphics adapter, the hard disk controller etc. If there is a problem getting identification information from any of the devices it uses, the routine that generates an Installation ID will return 0 and you will have no ID, no activation and no use of XP.

Fun, huh?

I am still working on the problem at the moment, but I am led to believe that slip-streaming SP3 with the installation will solve the problem and that’s what I’m working on right now. It’s also possible that enough modifications to the virtual hardware configuration will bypass whatever is acting as a faulty component, but I’m hoping to avoid resolving the problem by manually tweaking every single hardware setting until I find what works.

UPDATE:
SUCCESS!! I slip-streamed SP3 into my standard SP2-OEM disk and it works perfectly, no activation issues whatsoever.

I am pleased to report my desktop is no longer Slackware-13.0, but is now Slackware-current and using KDE SC 4.4.0 as provided by alienBOB: http://alien.slackbook.org/blog/its-been-released-kde-sc-4-4-0/

I’m very pleased with the new KDE. With the exception of the polkit argument that’s going on every new release of KDE brings fresh delight, and I hope it never stops.

There’s one little thing it took me a short while to realise and so is worth mentioning here. I use “Desktop Grid” and “Present Windows” a lot and have them mapped to the top corners of the desktop for quick-access. After upgrading to KDE SC 4.4.0, my panel started disappearing whenever I used “Desktop Grid” and, while it’s not exactly a problem, it doesn’t look very good. The panel always disappears in “Present Windows” but that is expected behaviour.

The reason I discovered is that “Desktop Grid” now includes a per-desktop “Present Windows” by default, so if you have multiple windows open in a desktop, they will be “Presented” within that desktop in the grid view, and for this reason the panel disappears. Some may like this feature, and I see how it could be very useful, but I don’t want it. As I have, you can turn it off:

System Settings -> Desktop -> Desktop Effects -> All Effects -> Desktop Grid (Configure)

Uncheck “Use Present Windows effect to layout the windows”.