Refreshing my MicroSoft WIN 2000 Professional and Office 2000 Professional.

Hello,
In my home we run three personal computer systems using Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional, and Office 2000 Professional software. The software runs on three, stand-alone, HP Visualize, X Class, professional workstations. (Also of year 2000 vintage, and still going strongly.!) All three of us have different fields of interest and prefer this individualized set-up to the use of a single, shared PC, system.

After twenty or so years of use, various data errors have accumulated in our software installations, the resultant software corruption has become a problem. I have all of our original source CD's, and I would like to uninstall all of the corrupt Windows and Office software and replace it with a set of three new installations, meanwhile saving all of our personal data files. However, I recall that when I originally built these PC hardware and software installations it was essential to 'validate' the software installations with Microsoft, in order to transition from the 30 day "Trial" status, to the fully functional "Permanent" status.

Since both WIN 2K Pro. and Office 2000 Pro. are long gone from Microsoft support, the validation process will not be available to me. Is there anything that I can do to make it possible to do a successful re-install of Windows and Office, using my original CD sets. Or, is the uninstall/ reinstall process not feasible in the absence of Microsoft validation?. I am now in my 86th year of age, neither my brain, nor my memory, function as well as they did in the year 2000, so, I need to "keep it simple, stupid!"

No, I do not want any of the successor versions to Windows 2K Pro. and Office 2K Pro. In my opinion WIN 2K Pro. is the best OS member of the Windows family, because it is just a pure operating system, not an advertising venue, nor a personal data theft device for the financial benefit of Microsoft, it's stock-holders, and it's advertising clients.

Thank you for any support that you may be able to provide to me.

Comments

  • If by "validation" you mean product activation, then Windows 2000 should not be a problem since it didn't have that yet as far as I know (first Windows version with activation was XP).

    As for Office 2000, it did have product activation on launch but based on info from Microsoft, it was disabled after April 15, 2003 and should no longer be needed except in rare cases (see this page for more info: https://web.archive.org/web/20080129093527/http://support.microsoft.com/kb/822244).
  • Regular Windows 2000/Office 2000 user here. What DeFacto said is correct. There is no activation for Windows 2000, and activation is no longer required for Office 2000 and hasn't been for some time. You should be fine to wipe and reinstall everything.
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