Hardware Changes & Vista Activation

  • Thread starter Thread starter kasmatt
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kasmatt

Hi Guys,
I recently tried to add another hard drive (IDE) to my pc running Vista
Business but the moment i logged onto windows after adding the hard drive, i
got a message saying windows de-activated due to hardware changes. I then
uinstalled the hard drive and windows was back in its activated state. From
what i know adding a hard drive is not really a big hardware change. Can some
one please tell me what hardware changes vista considers significant enough
to deactivate? Vista did not come with my pc, I got it seperately. My pc
specs are:
Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz
Ram: 1.5 GB
Hard Drive : 80GB (Maxtor-IDE)
Hard Drive I tried to add: 80GB (Samsung - IDE)
Gigabyte S-Series GA-946GMX-S2 Motherboard
Nvidia Geforce 8500GT
Creative sound blaster Live 24-bit sound card
Leadtek Winfast TV Deluxe Tv Card
Sony Dual layer CD/DVD Writer

Thanks in advance. Any more advice connected with Vista hardware
installations will be much appreciated.
Matthew
 
The system drive is the only one that is enumerated for activation purposes.
If you change the system drive then it is sufficient to trigger reactivation
because the system drive is heavily weighted in the reactivation algorithm
(much more so than with XP).

What is on the hard drive you are adding? Have you set the jumper to slave?
I would not use cable select in this case.

In any event you should be able to reactivate by internet if that turns out
to be necessary. Even phone activation is no big deal.
 
kasmatt said:
Hi Guys,
I recently tried to add another hard drive (IDE) to my pc running Vista
Business but the moment i logged onto windows after adding the hard drive,
i
got a message saying windows de-activated due to hardware changes. I then
uinstalled the hard drive and windows was back in its activated state.
From
what i know adding a hard drive is not really a big hardware change. Can
some
one please tell me what hardware changes vista considers significant
enough
to deactivate? Vista did not come with my pc, I got it seperately. My pc
specs are:
Intel Core 2 Duo 2 GHz
Ram: 1.5 GB
Hard Drive : 80GB (Maxtor-IDE)
Hard Drive I tried to add: 80GB (Samsung - IDE)
Gigabyte S-Series GA-946GMX-S2 Motherboard
Nvidia Geforce 8500GT
Creative sound blaster Live 24-bit sound card
Leadtek Winfast TV Deluxe Tv Card
Sony Dual layer CD/DVD Writer

Thanks in advance. Any more advice connected with Vista hardware
installations will be much appreciated.
Matthew
Click to expand...


Hardware changes are cumulative. Many things can cause Windows to think
something has changed. A BIOS upgrade may cause Windows to see a couple of
changes if you have an on board NIC and video. A driver change can cause
Windows to think that the hardware changed if the driver includes a firmware
update. What this means is that over time Windows may see hardware changes
even if you haven't actually changed any hardware. Each time it sees a
change a counter is incremented when the counter hits x number of changes
you see the activation screen. What x equals and how the hardware changes
are weighted is only known to Microsoft. Microsoft changes these factors
when based on what they see happening.

Having to re-activate is a nuisance but it isn't usually a problem. At worst
you may have to phone a toll free number. I'd go ahead and install the hard
drive then re-activate.
 
I wish it took a big change like that to trigger reactivation for me. I've
had to reactivate 4 times in less than a year, and I haven't changed hardware
at all. The only driver updates I've done have been through Windows Update.
The closest thing I did to a hardware change was using a thumbdrive
lastnight, which I ejected properly, then hibernated my tablet. When I woke
up my computer, it told me I had to reactivate. This constant reactivation
issue is unacceptable, and has me looking at alternatives. Frankly, it
pisses me off that I have friends with a pirated version of Windows that
don't get nagged, but I go legit, and I have it worse.
 
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