I just spent a very long time on the phone today to a whole series of Microsoft support people on the Indian sub-continent trying to sort out how to update a counterfeit copy of XP on a client's PC to a genuine version that I had bought on the client's behalf.
By the time I had finished, the problem was resolved - without the need to overwrite or in any way harm the existing installation - but what I would really have preferred is to have been advised immediately how to solve the problem or, better, to have been able to carry out a web search and discover the way forward.
I did tried the search but to no avail.
The whole process on the phone (because there was so many different people I spoke to) was so convoluted, though, that I'm not 100 per cent sure that I could sort out the problem easily, though I presume what I would do is use the KeyUpdateTool that can be downloaded from here: http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/selfhelp/pkuinstructions.aspx
I have read the sticky post in this forum that relates to this issue but it is rather, er, succinct.
So, pretty please, could someone from Microsoft make a clear (and sticky) statement here about how best to update from a counterfeit version of XP to a genuine version using, I presume, the KeyUpdateTool?
And, further, could Microsoft somehow make it possible to find this solution with a simple search on the web?
Okay, I used Google, not Microsoft's own search engine, but I was amazed that the search I carried out failed to locate the easy solution.
Clear statement needed here about how to update from a counterfeit version of XP
.