XP activation

I have a new Compaq AMD 1.4ghz 725US laptop with XP home edition installed. I've installed ECDC5 Platinum, Office97 and some other utilities on it and I forgot that there is some sort of activation with XP. Currently it is a freestanding computer and is not connected to the internet. Is there some sort of grace period when you first turn on the laptop that will let you use the computer before it prevents you from booting up??

OEMs(HP,Compaq etc...) don't require activation ,the OS is tied to the bios.Anyway the activation would only kick in with hardware changes not software installations.

If it needs to be activated, you will see a popup message at the task bar when you first log on. And if it is needed you have 30 days.......

Make sure you get the XP update for EZCDC.......