Hello Ellie Kings,
All of the Microsoft products on your Compaq Evo computer are volume licensing products.
Usually that means the computer, in your case, was at one time used in a business, educational, or governmental organization that is large enough to participate in Microsoft's volume licensing agreements. Before disposing of the computer, that organization should have erased their Volume Licenses for Windows and Office, because according to the Volume Licensing agreements, these programs cannot be transferred with the computer outside of the organization when the computer is sold.
As you are an individual consumer not associated with that kind of big organization, however, your use of these volume licenses would almost always be a nongenuine use of the installed software, regardless of whether it reports as genuine or not.
In the case of the Compaq Evo computer itself, if the computer still has a Certificate of Authenticity (CoA) affixed to it, chances are excellent that it is still licensed to run the version and edition of Windows described on the CoA, and getting that corrected is not an insurmountable task. You would have to contact Compaq's customer support and order (if available) a set of Recovery or Reinstallation discs so you can put the original license for Windows back onto the computer. Here is the computer model's support page at Compaq:
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/DriverDownload.jsp?prodNameId=97128&lang=en&cc=us&taskId=135&prodTypeId=12454&prodSeriesId=316510In the event that the computer does not have a CoA affixed, we would have to assume the computer does not have a license to run any version or edition of Windows. In order to Get Genuine, you would have to purchase a license for Windows at your favorite software retailer, or consider participating in the Windows Genuine Offer as described in the FAQ:
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/FAQ.aspx?displaylang=en#ID0EFIACIn the case of the Office applications, it is unlikely that you would have receive any genuine hologrammed Office program discs or a Certificate of Authenticity for Office with the computer. If you did receive Office discs, you can check them for genuineness at
http://www.howtotell.com. If you have genuine Office discs, Get Genuine by uninstalling the current nongenuine installation of Office, restart twice, then install your genuine Office using your discs and the accompanying genuine Product Key.
Assuming you did not receive Office discs and an Office CoA, you do not have a license to run Office. In such case, you could either purchase Office from your favorite software retailer, or read about partiticpation in the Genuine Office Offer at the FAQ:
http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/downloads/FAQ.aspx?displaylang=en#ID0EKNAC If you decide to take advantage of the Genuine Office Offer, please being by clicking the "Learn More Online" link in the nongenuine notices you are seeing on your screen.
For great advice on all topics XP, visit http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp
