Major hardware change?

[BustaRomeo]

I was LANing with a couple of my friends today and I've just had to reactivate my copy of Windows XP Home. Apparently I needed to do it because of some "major hardware change". All I did was temporarily pull out the power so I could move the computer, I turn it back on and this. It's no problem, really, I just want to know what "major hardware change" took place, even though nothing has changed.

[ktkendall]

Without looking at your device manager before you pulled power and looking at it now I couldn't really tell you why windows thinks there has been a major hardware change, I would suspect though that your CMOS battery is weak and you CMOS/BIOS settings have reverted back to factory default, because you pulled power completely for a time. Did the windows found new hardware wizard come up and install new hardware when you booted it up??? Were you able to successfully reactivate Windows???

[BustaRomeo]

Nope, the wizard didn't come up. And I succesfully reactivated it. Looking at the device manager doesn't show up anything that's missing, changed, or new. Everything seems ok.

[HAL9000]

Have you installed any software recently that emulates some hardware. I installed Clone CD once and when it created the Virtual Clone CD Drive, it was detected as new hardware (and I recently changed hardware in the weeks before), the new "drive" was enough to push things over the limitations and request me to re-activate.

[ktkendall]

If you did not loose the date and time in the BIOS, then you are safe as far as loosing your BIOS settings being the cause. I read that there is a limit to the number of activations one is allowed with XP, so maybe this is a way that M$ has built in to start using up the number of activations so we have to buy a new copy sooner..

[Statica]

Originally Posted by ktkendall If you did not loose the date and time in the BIOS, then you are safe as far as loosing your BIOS settings being the cause. I read that there is a limit to the number of activations one is allowed with XP, so maybe this is a way that M$ has built in to start using up the number of activations so we have to buy a new copy sooner..

Let's research some facts before posting stuff..

Yes there is a limit to the number of INTERNET RE-activations that a particular license of XP will sustain but it is beyond reason to fathom that there is any legitimate cause to requiring more than 4 activations a year. I'll show this again, hardware keys that are created for the following
Display Adapter
SCSI Adapter
IDE Adapter
Network MAC address
RAM amount range
Processor type
Processor Serial #
HDD
HD volume serial #
Optical drive (CD/RW, DVD/RW)
Dockable
Algorithm of the hardware hash created

Now do you suppose there is a realistic chance, that a legitimate PC user is going to change 6 or more components significantly more than 4 times a year is very RARE. From the example: a user could change the following sequence "..User swaps the motherboard and CPU chip for an upgraded one, swaps the video adapter, adds a second hard drive for additional storage, doubles the amount of RAM, and swaps the CD ROM drive for a faster one..." and it still does not require reactivation.

Now remember, it still does not limit you in any way by having to change your computer more than 4 times a year with the same copy of XP. The limit is on automatic internet reactivation. If you go over the limit you will have to call the Microsoft activations # and get the information.
http://download.microsoft.com/downlo...etBulletin.doc

IMO, we need to see things for what they are .. yes there are tons of issues with Microsoft, and tons of issues with their software, some genuine and some that hold no water .. however, selling you a product and stifling its use to force you to buy another one is NOT something that is done by XP.

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From my experience I have seen tons of gripes about XP activation, but rarely from people who actually own a legal copy of XP and had to reactivate it for legitimate reasons. This board and my personal experience has been proof that even for the RARE occasions that a fone call is need, it has been real easy. I have yet to see any vendor complain about product activation, because most of the legitimate ones either have VLKs or SLPs or do insist that customers have their own legal copy of the OS. The vast majority of those that do have problems are those that seem to have feel cheated that they cannot install XP on their home computer and laptop, parents', neighbors', grandparents', work computers. Be it a software with Product activation, or one without .. people still need to be aware that it is illegal .. was illegal from the days of DOS, is illegal for every NON-freeware/ non-GNU software there is.

[Statica]

And to just add on - Product activation is now a feature of LOADS of other products as well, from Macromedia's new suites to even Adobe's offerings like Photoshop etc. It's hear to stay.