Copy a Single File to Avoid Re-Activating Windows XP

The Online Tech Tips site offers up a great tip for anyone reinstalling XP off something other than their original CD—such as a slipstreamed and automated installation—or lacking a net connection to run the activation. Before wiping your system clean, grab a file named WPA.DBL from the System32 directory and save it to a thumb drive or other external media. When you load up your new system, skip registration, enter "Safe Mode" from the boot menu, and drop it back into that System32 folder. Now you're re-activated and free of nagging. Hit the link below for detailed explanation of each step.

How to avoid having to reactivate Windows XP after fresh install [Online Tech Tips]

Game Key Revealer Finds the Keys for Your Games

Windows only: If you have a game installed on your computer but have lost the original documents that came with it, you can still retrieve the product keys for safekeeping. Game Key Revealer is a small portable application that can help you recover your lost game keys.

Game Key Revealer supports more than 500 popular computer games from well known publishers like Electronic Arts, Ubisoft, THQ and Lucasarts. The game key of games like The Sims 2, Call of Duty, Crysis or Far Cry can be revealed if the game is installed on the system.

Operation is as simple as running the executable, clicking "Find Games" and watching as it quickly crawls your computer retrieving all the available game keys. Game Key Revealer is a free download for Windows Only.

Game Key Revealer [via gHacks]

UNetbootin Creates USB-Bootable Linux the Easy Way

Windows and Linux only: Free bootable image creator UNetbootin automates the downloading, imaging, and installing of Linux distributions onto USB thumb drives, creating a persistent, boot-anywhere desktop. We've previously featured rather involved guides to putting Linux on a flash drive, but UNetbootin does it all for you, from downloading the right ISO to setting up a USB stick as a bootable Linux drive. It can also convert almost any bootable ISO, so if you've got an old, smaller thumb drive not seeing much use these days, you can use UNetbootin to install a partition editor, a file-recovering live CD, or the Windows password-cracking Ophcrack. UNetbootin is a free download for Windows XP and higher and Linux systems.

UNetbootin [via Tombuntu]