Good day, 

I have a bad feeling my MSOOBE.exe gone bad. I spent some time already
trying to understand the problem..
 
When I log-in to XP (home edition) it asks me to activate the product.
I'd love to do that, however when I click "yes" it logs me back off
right away! So I don't have any other choices and I can't log in to
the system.
 
Now I have a valid copy, it's just that I haven't activated it on
time, and now I can't do it at all. After spending over 5 hours on the
internet and trying everything possible hack, I still couldn't solve
it.
 
As I suspect, first the winlogon.exe is triggered on the startup, and
then winlogon.exe calls the msoobe.exe.  I tried to replace msoobe.exe
with another file I found on the internet, and I saw how a DOS window
was opened for a second as I authenticated, but then it kicked me
right back.

So, here's what I am after. I don't want to hack the Windows, because
it's basically imposisble with SP1 (that's what I have). I just want
to activate it, as a good citizen. I don't want to reinstall Windows -
just to proove a point. I want to get the activation proceedure to
work correctly!

Again, I think the problem somewhere is in msoobe.exe or the files
around it. Would anyone has any insight on it?

This issue is "hot" now all over the internet. I've seen many people
are frustrated with this, so a working scenario will be helpful to
everyone.

Thanks!
- Alex

I have successfully activated XP by calling the activation number. Try
(425) 635-7222 US or (905) 568-4494 Canada.

Thanks for trying to help. No, Microsoft Support or the Activation
people have a limited solution...
 
As I spoke before, the activation routine has been "corrupt" somehow.
So, you can't activate the product simply because you cannot get
there. Now when I spoke to MS tech, he found a similar article, which
states that activation routine comes up, but it comes up blank:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314935

So, the article suggests replacing an actshell.htm file, which is
located in the oobe. As far as I understand most of the activation
related files are in the oobe dir.

There's a second solution to this. To do the Repair install of XP. I
actually could not test to see if it works because I did not know the
admin password of the computer I was working on, and the Repair option
cannot continue without the admin password (which I could not reset
with any known to me cracking utilities).

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;330136

Anyway, I guess if I tried replacing one by one files in oobe (which I
hear stands for "Out of the Box Experience" ) I may have gotten it to
work.  The answer is still to be found.

Here's a related discussion thread:

http://www.opentechsupport.net/forums/archive/topic/17388-1.html

I noticed that I haven't specified the exact message. It'd be useful
for the futher searches:

"This copy of Windows must be activated with Microsoft before you can
log on. Do you want to activate Windows now? (Yes/No)"

- Alex
http://www.rentUI.com/

You could also try to do a System File Check by running sfc /scannow
from a command prompt.

open a command prompt
%>sfc /SCANNOW

HTH

If it's a corrupt file problem, try running "sfc /scannow" from the XP
run box. That will check your system files and replace any corrupt
ones. You'll need your Win XP install CD for any files that need to be
restored.
If that doesn't work, I would try booting into safe mode, then
manually running the registration process by entering
"C:\windows\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a" in the run box. Details on
this procedure can be found at:
http://techrepublic.com.com/5100-6270-5034890.html
If you still can't run the registration process in "safe mode", you
might have to modify the registry first, which is covered in the .html
file mentioned above. Basically, it just involves modifying the
"HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\WindowsNT\Current
Version\WPAEvents\ODBETimer" binary value.
After that, then run C:\windows\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a  to register XP.
Hope this is of some help.