Ok, I have already touched on this topic but heres a refresher. I reinstalled XP recently and and it said I had 30 days to activate it. Well, today was lucky day 30 and its locked me out of my computer till I activate it and the problem is I have lost the little thing with the key on it. I have tried numerous keyfinder programs that you guys have suggested and none have worked. all the numbers they bring up it says they are invalid or somthing. So I spent at least an hour playing phone tag with Microsoft for them to basically say "sucks to be you" Is there any option I am missing before I resort to buying a new OS? and if I am up a creek without a paddle is there at least a way I can backup my programs. I have found I can get on in Safe Mode, will a CD burning program work in safe mode so I can save my stuff? Any and all help would be helpful. Thanks!!

Hya PJ.

There must be something wrong with the key that is used on youre pc as i know that atleast one of those keyfinders works for sure.

But yes , if you can still boot in safemode , then you can still backup all youre data to cd without any problems.
Or if you do get a valid key , then just activate the current install with that key. Then you dont have to back anything up.

ok, what I did was I put the windows CD in and rebooted and instead of reinstalling I told it to "Repair" windows. It reset the 30 day timer and left all my stuff alone.