Exceded windows product key limit?

[johnnr892]

This is a strange one, Today i was re-formatting my hardrive for about the 6th time in about 6months and when it came to activating windows it came up with 'your product key has exceeded the registration limit. Please enter another registration key.' Strange, the win xp disc is HOME OEM. I put my original key in again just to try but it didn't work. Arrrggg, please help me with this, i really can't afford to pay out another £50 for another OEM home disc. Thanks again guys, any help will be greatly appreciated.
John

[megah0]

Ring MS, they will ask you for your install ID and give you a new thingy to enter

[johnnr892]

cheers for the quick reply, but i just tried it again and it worked! has anybody else has this experience?

[myth]

yep.. its intel keeping a track on whos using what... The average cracker wont bother to call M$

[Daymonkey]

Well last time i phoned up microsoft they wouldent let me activate over the phone

[Fatboy]

I had a similar problem a while back, re-formatting and upgrading my PC meant silly amounts of registrations, but having spoken to MS and been given a new code over the phone I haven't had any problems since .... that said I haven't formatted for a while.

[|{££|"]

how many times did you input it exactly to get that message?

[johnnr892]

tried it twice, then restarted, then another 2 times and it wouldnt work. So by this time I'm a bit worried so i go and eat some food, come back for one last try before ringing microsoft and it just worked like it noemally does. SO who knows why it worked this time.

[0iD]

I've never had a problem re-activating over the phone. Done it loads of times in the past due to my bad(expensive) PC upgrade habit.

[5cupa]

had it once when i installed XP. then ran a spyware program before activating doh!