Hello mrwariner,
The genuine Windows that was on your Dell Inspiron 6000 when it was shipped from Dell to you was replaced by a nongenuine installation of Windows. The incident you experienced last year was the Windows Genuine Advantage program informing you of this situation.
[It's too late to do anything about it now, but it's very likely that you did not have to purchase a new license for Windows XP last year. If your Dell has a Certificate of Authenticity for Windows XP on the bottom, then your computer will always be licensed to run that version and edition of Windows. In all probability, all that needed to be done was to reinstall the correctly licensed version and edition of Windows onto the computer.]
It is very likely that the nongenuine Office that is being detected now was installed on the computer
at the same time that the nongenuine Windows was installed. In the time that you have owned your Dell, did you ever have the computer worked on by a shop, a repair person, or by a well-meaning family member or friend, maybe to help you repair a problem with viruses, malware, or some other computer glitch? If so, then experience tells us
that is a very common scenario for how computers like yours, that shipped from the manufacturer with genuine Windows, came to have nongenuine Windows and other nongenuine Microsoft software installed.
The incident that you are experiencing now is the Office Genuine Advantage program informing you that the Office that is now installed on your Dell computer is a nongenuine copy.
What to do now depends upon whether your Dell came from Dell with a full OEM license for Office preinstalled, or if it came with a Trial of Office, or if it came from Dell with no installation of Office at all.
(a) If it came from Dell with a full OEM license for Office, uninstalling the current bad copy of Office, and then putting your OEM copy of Office back onto the computer, will solve the nongenuine problem. You would have received one or more hologrammed Microsoft Office installation discs as well as an Office Certificate of Authenticity from Dell if you purchased Office from them.
(b) If it came with a Trial of Office from Dell, then the question arrises, Did you purchase a license from Microsoft to convert the trial to a perpetually licensed product? If so, uninstalling the current bad copy of Office, and installing Office with the correct perpetual product key, will solve the nongenuine problem. Of course, if there was a Trial on the computer and you never purchased the license to convert the Trial, then you never puchased Office so just uninstalling the current bad copy would solve that problem.
(c) If it came with no installation of Office at all, then uninstalling the current bad copy of Office would solve the nongenuine problem.
If you are not sure if your Dell came with a full OEM license for Office, you can check into it in one of several ways:
(a) Contact Dell customer service and ask them to look up your purchase records to see if you paid extra for the OEM license for Office. If there is no specific line item charge for Office then you did not buy a license from Dell.
(b) Check you purchase paperwork and emails that you got from Dell. If you purchased Office, there will be a line item that calls out the edition you purchased and the price paid.
(c) Look at the orginal configuration on the Dell website for your computer to see if there is a listing for the installation discs for Office, which Dell supplies when you buy an Office license from them. Follow these steps:
1. Go to
http://support.dell.com2. Enter your computer's service tag number
3. Locate the Warranty Information links on the left side of the page
4. Click on the Warranty Status link
5. On the Warranty Information page, click the center tab "Original System Configuration"
6. Look for an entry that describes Office discs. Here is an example:
| UN495 |
Kit, Software, MS Office Home and Student-2K7, English |
For great advice on all topics XP, visit http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp
