Locked out of windows xp by activation

I downloaded something from this forum that was suppose to make the windows xp activated but after reboot it says you must activate now or loggoff, before i installed the file i had 7 days left to activate , is there anyway to get back in some how and activate it?
Answer #1
Na Microsoft is a ~ censored ~ about that kinda stuff There might be a way to do it but its probably needlessly complex
If i were you, id just reformat it… Thats pretty much all you can do And its probably quicker then the aforementioned complex operation
Answer #2
Try in safe mode. If not you might have to get a key and try and do it the legit way.