Machines came with stickers on them that showed a Product Key for the Windows licensed for the system. The majority of Windows XP systems out there were originally sold with preloaded versions of XP which were 'preactivated' Preactivation worked by having the activation mechanism in XP check the BIOS for an SLIC code that matched that version Personally I am comforted by seeing the actual install output which If you don't want to do the thing with the web browser then after turning on automatic updates, reboot the system and leave it alone until it downloads and installs them automatically.

If you try to do this any other way - in particular, turning on automatic updates before installing the windows update agent - you will either take DAYS for an updates list to appear (if it ever appears) or scotch Windows Updates completely. You will get the full list of 128 or so updates, keep installing all of them then repeat this until there's no more updates Say NO during installation of it to install updatesĥ) Install the Windows Update Agent from the location aboveĦ) Turn ON automatic updates and turn OFF sleep or hibernationħ) Run IE8, from the Tools menu, select Windows Update, install the 3 updates it tells you to, reboot, then repeat. (note that XP sp2 boot CD is mandatory for SATA disks) During the install turn OFF automatic updatesģ) Install Service Pack 3 (download locations from here:Īfter the reboot, once more turn OFF automatic updates While it is not likely often these days that you will be called on to install a fresh copy of XP, if you are the steps are as follows:ġ) Boot from the XP cd and run the installer.

I will point out that this agent is a critical part of updating Windows XP at this time.

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