ok well let me ask this. if i know i may need to reinstall it in a few days after saving the wpa file.. or rather LESS than the 120 day reset. then it should work .. correct?? or am i wrong on that thinking???

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I dunno. I have never tried it myself. Anyone? i_XpUser

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Hello everyone, Good Morning XpUser, Yes, it is true that WPA get's reset after 120 days. Every 120 days WPA will audit the hardware on the computer and generate a new HWID (Hardware ID). This resets the changed hardware count to zero. It doesn't matter if the HWID has been reset once or multiple times as it is still the same machine. One thing to note is that if you format the hard drive you will lose one vote because the VSN (volume serial number has changed) and WPA will see this as a new hard drive. Best Regards, Mesich

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Thanks :-) The part about VSN is interesting. How does one determine when do the audit take place? Is it by M$ Calendar or by our machine itself? i_XpUser

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Mesich, Ignore my last question - I wasn't thinking clear especially on a lazy Saturday morning :-) My common senses tells me that the WPA reset & audit timing is based on the date you first installed XP. No? i_XpUser

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Hello. As far as I know, after reformatting the same hard drive, you cannot activate Windows by simply re-copying the Wpa.dbl and Wpa.bak into System32 directory. Did anybody reformat the hard drive and still reactivate the new Windows installation by simply copying the Wpa.dbl and Wpa.bak into System32 directory ? If you do not reformat but instead delete everything on the hard drive, then after reinstalling Windows, you can reactivate by simply inserting the two Wpa files into System32 directory. Regards

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Hi Suat, Hi mesich, dj3642, everyone else again :-) Speaking of VSN, you may still be able to reformat the HD if you follow the hints that I have just picked up from THIS site. The hints are as follows: What about formatting a hard disk? Two things are recorded for disks: the number of the disk drive itself, and the Volume Serial Number (VSN) of the partition on it. HINT No. 1: The VSN is part of the data in the partition’s first sector, so it is changed when you reformat the drive. It is worth getting the freeware utility Volume ID (CLICK ME) to restore the original VSN. Before you reformat, run the Volume ID utility from a Command Prompt, note the VSN (e.g., 1F2E-3C4B) in the second line. Then, after the reformat and new Windows XP installation, defer the new activation until you have run Volume ID to restore the old VSN, and rebooted. This is not essential — but it saves one of the ‘Yes votes’ against any future hardware change. (If you don’t wish to run this utility, the next best way to obtain the same result would be to delete the old Win XP files from the hard drive before reinstalling, rather than actually reformatting.) HINT No. 2: Another thing that changes the VSN is converting a FAT 32 partition to NTFS. So, if you upgrade a system using FAT 32 to Windows XP and intend to convert to NTFS, do the conversion before activating the system. Remember, you can wait a while: you have 30 days before you need to activate. The machine’s hardware at the time of the first activation is what counts. Or, if you have already activated, use Volume ID as described in Hint No. 1. If you are doing this after activation, also first back up the WPA.DBL and WPA.BAK files, as described in Hint No. 3 below, and, after completion of the conversion, restore these files and reboot again. HINT No. 3: It is valuable to back up the two files WPA.DBL and WPA.BAK from the Windows\System32 folder.Then, should they get damaged, or should you do a ‘Repair’ reinstallation of Win XP, these files can be copied back to restore the prior activation status. However, this only works in those limited circumstances. The contents of these two files is matched to the specific Windows setup; therefore, contrary to what many journalists and members of the user community have written in recent months, restoring these files will not restore your activation status following a reformat and clean install. The disk drive and partition recorded will be the ones that the system has found first when doing the initial activation: normally the one from which the system booted. So, if you change that disk and reinstall Windows to a new partition, you have lost two of the Yes votes. If, though, you add a new hard disk, copy the original partition onto it with an imaging program, and retain the original hard drive as a secondary data disk, it will still be found by a later check. This is because it searches for all disks, and the vote will be Yes in both categories if it finds the original one, with the partition not reformatted. i_XpUser

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Hey all thanks for all the info. This is the thing in my case. I have other people in my family use my PC from time to time and somehow they really F things up LOL .. I will try to figure out what they have done but sometimes it gets just too aggravating and it is easier once I have saved my files that I need on another drive to redo the partition.. its just not worth the aggravation. So literally nothing is really changing on the Pc itself. Hardware etc.. the only thing I can see in this case would be the VSN that would be changing.. and I understand that is considered one tick mark against having to reactivate?? How many do you get?? I mean if I am not changing anything else on the Pc that should be no big deal right?? I really am hoping I can go a while without having to do this again. But in the last 4 months alone LOL I had to redo it about 3 times. I know I know. Don’t let them use it LOL easier said than done LOL .. I just know that if I am having to reactivate all the time. I will have the Microsoft police after me LOL .. But thanks for all the info.. I have backed up my wpa.dll file. And now I understand that the 120 days is from the last install. I will keep that in mind. Ok let me ask this. I guess you said that after 120 days it resets itself again. Ok so does that mean that maybe after say 122 days I could STILL back up the wpa.dll file and still use that or no??.. I mean I assume if it is resetting the wpa file. Then I should still be able to copy it and use it as backup right?/ or am I wrong in this thinking??

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