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I still almost remember all of a certain infamous "FCKGW" key for WinXP.

Haven't installed it in... 20 years?



FCKGW-RHQQ2-YXRKT-8TG6W-2B7Q8

I had bummed out my P-III 700Mhz desktop so many times, while tinkering with System32, INI files & experimental software etc., in grade school that this key is seared into some part of my cortex.


I had the first, second, and fifth sections down for sure, and some almost-remembered version of the other two but also couldn't remember which order they went in.

I typed it a lot of times, but still probably only in the (high) tens. Crazy how long it sticks in one's memory with relatively little spaced repetition.


In those days of yore, the P-III was our first home computer (Hard to imagine for kids today that a family of 5 could have one PC shared between themselves).

I was the experimental, eldest summer child in my home. I used to break things trying, open up the hood & change RAM or other stuff, add/remove peripherals & their drivers -- and to the extent of nuking Windows entirely to try out Redhat 7/8, Knoppix, and other esoteric software (because partitioning sucked back then & also, why not for the fun of it). I used to load up dozens of software on that tiny Seagate 20.4GB drive until it crawled & failed. A clean wipe & reinstall used to soon follow.

The only parent-child contract was to bring back Windows XP to its usable state when direly needed by my mother to type/edit her dissertation chapters about women suffragette literature. I have broken & fixed Windows so many times, I could sing tunes to product keys


That was my first CPU! Thanks for the flashback.




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