MS Office XP activation woes while on the road...advice much appreicated!

[DaveH]

I just left on an 8 day trip, and have some work I must get finished on my notebook. I tried today to log on for the first time since leaving home, and upon booting into outlook I got a message from the Activation Wizard saying that there had been significant changes in my hardware, and unless I activated, I would have crippled functionality.

Nothing about the hardware has changed, except that I've removed a wireless nic and am using the built-in nic with a different internet connection.

Of course it says it needs the stupid CD to run the wizard, which I don't have with me, so that's a no go. And I doubt that operators are standing by on Xmas night!

Ironically, this is a site-licensed copy (I teach at a University with a site-license), and I've never received this message before--even on machines that I've tinkered with.

How can I get this resolved most easily? Please lmk if I'm not providing other info that would help answer this question, and TIA for your time!

Dave

 

[MisterMe]

You're pretty much out of luck...sorry

 

[DaveH]

update: now that I'm home, putting the office CD in immediately cured the problem, WITHOUT asking for more information.

It seems the lesson is, be sure to bring the CDs with you if you're travelling.

 

[Mrburns2007]

Originally posted by: DaveH
update: now that I'm home, putting the office CD in immediately cured the problem, WITHOUT asking for more information.

It seems the lesson is, be sure to bring the CDs with you if you're travelling.

Or just make ISO copies of them and keep them on your hard drive and then load them with Dameon Tools.

No need to lug those orignal cd's around.

 

[DaveH]

Mrburns2007, do you have a link or description for Dameon Tools? That's a new one for me. TIA

 

[Need4Speed]

daemon-tools

 

[lowtech1]

That why at work here we still order Win2k pro desktop laptop.

I copy the driver.cab under the \i386 onto the hdd once the install process is compleated and be done with driver disk swap.

 

[DaveH]

Thanks Need4Speed.

Looks like it's a copy-protection defeater program. Would it be necessary for this application? (or is it just that the original CD is copy protected?)

 

[Need4Speed]

well, thats one of the things it does. in a nutshell, daemon tools is a cdrom emu. it will mount an ISO image (or bin/cue, clone, etc) that is stored on the hdd and present it as if it was in the cdrom. thus, assigining a drive letter to the image such that it can be accessed like any other drive.

 

[Mrburns2007]

Originally posted by: Need4Speed
well, thats one of the things it does. in a nutshell, daemon tools is a cdrom emu. it will mount an ISO image (or bin/cue, clone, etc) that is stored on the hdd and present it as if it was in the cdrom. thus, assigining a drive letter to the image such that it can be accessed like any other drive.

exactly....no need to lug cd's around with you.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Mrburns2007

Originally posted by: DaveH
update: now that I'm home, putting the office CD in immediately cured the problem, WITHOUT asking for more information.

It seems the lesson is, be sure to bring the CDs with you if you're travelling.

Or just make ISO copies of them and keep them on your hard drive and then load them with Dameon Tools.

No need to lug those orignal cd's around.

Isn't it ironic that a new anti-piracy measure is going to end up encouraging "piracy" of the original CD media, for cases just like these.