Thinkpads Forum

I'm helping a friend get her R40 up and running. She purchased it from a business sale. The only thing it came with was the laptop and the power cord. It is running Windows 2000. The license on the bottom of the laptop is for XP Pro. I thought I could use my OEM copy of XP Pro and use her key. Everything worked until I booted into Windows. It wants me to activate Windows and it says the CD key is invalid. I've tripple checked the key for any mistakes.

Ideas? Does anyone have this model? Maybe you could make an ISO of the CD and FTP the file to me?

I'm assuming if I installed XP using the restore CD I wouldn't have to activate XP. They key is legit. Could I just call Microsoft and get it activated?

Hi. Welcome to the forum!

I am going to move this thread over to the Marketplace, where hopefully, someone will respond with an offer for copies of their recovery disks.

The COA on the bottom will not work outright with the the CD that you are using. These keys are reserved for the Thinkpad. It is my understanding that upon using the Restore disks for an R40, it shouldn't even ask you to enter the CD-key, because they all essentially use the same series of numbers, dependant upon the model number. There are several users on here that have the R40 Restore disks. Unfortunately, I do not have a copy myself....yet.