XP That requires No installation key??

Hi. I just reinstalled XP on a crashed Dell Dimension 2400 for a friend. I was expecting it to ask for the 25 digit key that's on the case, but it never did! How can it possibly know that the XP is legit or that it deserves to get updates without a key? Does anyone have any idea of why this is happening? I haven't turned on auto updates yet, but I will later today. By the way it's acting, I think it will let me update. So does any one know why? Thanks

in the root dir of the CD there is a .txt file that has the serial, the program knows to look there for the activication code

Yes, that's what happened snow naval. It never wanted a key. I just figured windows update needed some way of knowing someone was registered etc. Now that I think about it, it must be that windows has files in it to automatically recognize DELL hardware. At least that's my guess. MS then knows that DELLS have an agreement with them, so they allow it to simply install.

number13, so there is a .txt file that's a serial? Really? That's interesting. I'd kind of think that all the .txt files would then be the same then if all discs are the same. I'll check it later....

grumpy9117, I guess they are, lol.




Thanks for responses.