Activate Windows from local account

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  Hi All,
  
  
  I have a problem that is rather annoying. I have read many similar posts, but none have the same situation as me. I hope someone here can help.
  
  
  A colleague asked me to fix his wife's laptop which had a virus on it. The machine is a member of a domain, which I do not have access to and the logon details I had were only for a domain account. I used this domain account to look at the problem, but couldn't fix it because the account had restricted rights, i.e. was not an administrator.
  
  I used an XP installation disk to do a repair on the OS, pressed Shift + F10 during the install to get a command prompt and then changed the account type for the domain account to be an administrative account, and created a local account with administrative rights also.
  
  After the repair completed Windows loads but asks for product activation. Problems arise here.
  
  Logging on via the domain account gives an error saying that I do not have admin rights and need an administrator to activate Windows.
  
  Logging on via the local account asks for the OS to be activated, but clicking yes makes the system hang. Loading the safe mode with console I have tried to install IE8, however I am told I don't have admin rights to install the software, however looking at the user accounts on the system the account is a member of the administrators.
  
  This leaves me with an unusable system. I think the problem can be resolved by removing the machine from the domain, but I cannot do this without a domain admin account. If anyone has any advice I would much appreciate it.
  
  Thanks
  

  Tuesday, December 14, 2010 1:32 PM