I just finished installing and activating my Windows XP in my virtualbox. Heres the funny thing that it made me think about.
I have two genuine Windows OS discs. Ones the Windows XP Home Edition that I purchased many years ago and the other one is the Windows Vista that I purchased not so long ago. The XP was being used with my old desktop. When the motherboard of that desktop got fried(after 4 years of "service"), I had to buy a new one as my old processor could not work with the newer motherboards and basically every other peripheral had to be replaced except for the DVD writter. Finally when the new PC(custom-made as I always go for) was finally ready, I couldn’t get the Windows XP that I had, activated and the message I got from the "activator" is that the key is being used in another system. The call to the customer service told me that since its a new PC, I would have to get a new license as Microsoft issues licenses for use in one PC only irrespective of the user.
So, I went ahead and since vista was out at that time, bought the Vista Home Premium and was being used till recently. Thanks to a lightning strike, some parts(Ethernet and Display) of my motherboard are damaged and was replaced with PCI/Ex cards. I continued using the same Windows until a few weeks ago when I had to replace my harddrive. The rotor would not spin and I kept getting I/O errors(for both read and write) and nobody can replace just the rotor. When I installed my vista on with the new hard drive, the activation problem came again with the same message that it cannot be activated as its already being used in another system. I was already using linux for my laptop and this resulted in Ubuntu being installed in the desktop too.
Now comes the funny part. Within Ubuntu, I just tried(not sure why but just tried) installing WinXp inside virtualbox. To my surprise, the WPA(Windows Product Activation) was successful. First I thought it was just a coincidence, but was even more surprised to see that the WPA was successful for my vista too. Then, to see if microsoft had made any policy changes, I tried installing both in my desktop as native and the WPA failed for both !!! But, the WPA is always successful in virtualbox!!! To make matters even more weird, the genuine advantage is also positive.
I’m yet to find an explanation for this behaviour.
