Product activation in windows always monitors the system configuration. If any major hardware change or too many minor hardware changes are detected within a set number of days the OS request the users to reactivate the product. This is the same case with the users who had formated their hard drive and performed a clean installation of the OS. As long as the new installation is done on the same system and if there isn’t any particular hardware changes, it is possible for the users to transfer the existing product activation and skip the steps for the product activation process again. The steps given below helps you to save the activation status information and restore it when your system is reconfigured:

1) Double-click My Computer

2) Double-click on the “C” drive icon

3) Go to the C:\Windows\System32 folder. Sometimes you may have to click the link that say to “Show The contents of this folder”

4) Find the files named “wpa.bak” and “wpa.dbl” and copy them to any location other tah C drive. You can save them on a floppy drive or in a CD or DVD.

5) After you have completed the reinstallation process of Windows XP on your reformatted hard drive, click “No” when you are asked for going through the activation process

6) Reboot the computer into SafeMode by pressing F8 as Windows is booting and select SAFEBOOT option from the advanced startup option.

7) Double-click My Computer icon.

8) Now double-click on the C: drive icon.

9) Go to the C:\Windows\System32 folder. Sometimes you may have to click the link that say to “Show the contents of this folder”

10) Search the files “wpa.bak” and “wpa.dbl” and rename these files to “wpabak.new” and “wpadbl.new”

11) Copy your original “wpa.dbl” and “wpa.bak” files which was saved in floppy disk or CD into the C:\Windows\System32 folder

12) Now restart your system

Windows XP operating system is now installed on your reformatted hard drive and you have activated the OS without actually going through the product activation process. This process won’t help you to transfer activation information from one computer to another computer or if you have altered the hardware, since the information stored in the “wpa.dbl” file will not match with the configuration of the new computer. This trick is only applicable for reinstalling Windows XP on a single computer after formatting the hard drive.