cuddlefish

Microsoft recently initiated a sweeping "anti-piracy" measure for WindowsXP. Firstly, they require newly installed instances of WinXP to be verbally verified over phone. You actually call in your OEM number to a hotline, honest to God, so they can make sure your copy of WinXP isn't on the blacklist of known copies on the pirated market. Secondly, they are blocking pirated versions of WinXP from downloading Windows Automatic Updates. I suppose asking for your WinXP CD is its way of verifying this latter protocol.