So having an issue on a Dell machine. We took a Windows XP box and put it through VMware converter to get a vmdk and booted it up. Obviously since it was a Dell OEM install of windows xp (we believe) when we converted, it came up requiring activation as the hardware changed on the system.
The guy who had the original install media left 5 yrs ago and apparently no one thought to get the discs from him...or even ask about them. Also Microsoft is less then helpful as "Jim Jones" from India or Pakistan just demands we give him a product key that works.
I was able to get a script that decrypts the XOR'd key from the registry, but when we put that into the machine the activation window shows NOTHING as the ID so we can't activate over the phone, and online activation is not an option because of the sensitivity of the machine.
Anyone know of a viable way to bypass activation? I know how to mod the WPAEvents OOBE registry but that just gets rid of the pesky notice, after 30 days you get hit with a "You cant login w/o activating mother fucker" window and resetting the timer every 30 days is not an optimal solution. I know there are a lot of compiled tools out there, but obviously when ran through any virus scan they come up with a host of alerts (any tool doing the shit I want would obviously post alerts, however I dont have the background / source code to figure out what is legit and what isn't).