Re: Activation and swapping drives
From: D.Currie (dmbcurrie.nospam_at_hotmail.com)
Date: 01/15/05
- Next message: Ken Blake: "Re: XPLite"
- Previous message: Jason: "DVD decoder"
- In reply to: James Schroff: "Re: Activation and swapping drives"
- Next in thread: James Schroff: "Re: Activation and swapping drives"
- Reply: James Schroff: "Re: Activation and swapping drives"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Date: Sat, 15 Jan 2005 12:56:01 -0700
"James Schroff" <james_schroff(at)hotmail(dot)com> wrote in message
news:ejLWshx%23EHA.2032@tk2msftngp13.phx.gbl...
> Thanks for your input.
>
> Personally and legally, I feel comfortable with the concept relative to
> the EULA. I suppose it may depend on whether a disc containing an
> installed version of Windows, by itself, can be legally construed as an
> "installation." Not connected to anything else, this disc is little more
> than a paperweight in function.
>
> To say that it could be used to makeup some other functioning machine
> would be like saying that an installation CD could be used to create
> another working system. What could be accomplished and what is being done
> are two different things.
>
> I have taken this same approach several times in the past with other
> versions of MS-Windows and it has been my salvation more than once when
> productivity demands occured prior to the fine tuning of my rather complex
> environment and applications.
Backups are a good thing.
>
> I was just not sure of how the activation process and its relationship
> with the Microsoft Update site may come into play, if at all. I could be
> wrong, I thought the Product Key was checked during online updates, but I
> do not know if the activation code may be checked against the inventory
> "votes" and whether each swap would increment them.
>
Activation has nothing to do with the update site. All of the effects of
activation are on your computer. Once it's been activated, assuming a legit
key, you're done. Unless you start swapping hardware, or course.
The hard drives don't know they've been swapped, they just know they've been
activated with the rest of whatever components are in the computer. The
activation countdown would start if you used that same hard drive, then
started swapping components around. But if you swapped the same component
multiple times, it would only be one vote. So you could swap the video card
a thousand times for one vote. Swapping the hard drive counts as one vote,
too, but only when the install is copied from one drive to another and the
installation sees it's on a new drive. The original installation doesn't
know anything about the new drive, so that's not relevant there.
As far as checking the product key, that doesn't happen, either. Or at least
not by the update site. Once again, that information is on your computer,
not being polled by MS. If the key was illegal (for example), it would be
your computer refusing the (for example) installation of the service pack,
it would not be the update site refusing to give it to your computer.
At the very worst, you might have to call MS for activation. Of all the
times I've done that, the majority of the time I've gotten a computerized
service that requires you to read a number then you get a number back to
type in.
The few times that hasn't worked, the next step is talking to a live person
(with what must be one of the most boring jobs on earth) and they aske a few
questions and as long as you aren't admitting to doing anything illegal, you
get activated. Oddly enough, questions have been different the times I've
called, maybe because the operators are bored, but it's mostly along the
line of whether this is the first install, whether you have the same
software on another computer, and what is causing the need for activation. I
don't get the impression that they're grilling for information, more that
they're logging the reasons activation gets triggered -- formatted the hard
drive, upgraded, whatever. It's not like you tell them that you've upgraded,
then they start asking what you upgraded and why, they just take your answer
and move on. I've never been refused an activation, but then again, I've
always been in compliance with the rules.
- Next message: Ken Blake: "Re: XPLite"
- Previous message: Jason: "DVD decoder"
- In reply to: James Schroff: "Re: Activation and swapping drives"
- Next in thread: James Schroff: "Re: Activation and swapping drives"
- Reply: James Schroff: "Re: Activation and swapping drives"
- Messages sorted by: [ date ] [ thread ]
Relevant Pages
|
