Keep your activation status intact when reinstalling XP

As long as you aren’t making any hardware alterations, you can back up the activation status files before you reformat the hard drive and then restore them after you reinstall the operating system. To perform the backup, follow these steps:

1. Use Windows Explorer to open the C:\Windows\System32 folder.
2. Copy the Wpa.dbl and Wpa.bak files to a floppy disk or CD.