Vista Activation?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Julie
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J

Julie

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/10/26/Microsoft_clarifies_Vista_activation_to_bit-tech/

Referring to this article, I'd like to know if someone could clarify one
part for me... I like to format my PC every now and then, like many others.
My question is, if my HD is the same, but I am reinstalling it, wouldn't
that mean I'd have to reactivate it? I would think that when the HD is
formatted and a fresh install existing, it would not remember that I
previously activated it.

Unless the MS server has my HD ID and compares it on fresh install?

Anybody know?

Thanks in advance,

Julie.

ps. KJP, Please Don't Respond. You're Responses Are Usually Incorrect, Just
FYI. :)
 
Yep, same as when I reinstall XP.
Windows XP and Vista have to be activated every time you reinstall.
 
Well, Julie, when you format your computer, you wipe out all the stored
information on it. Thus, your computer is freshly loaded. At that point, it
doesn't know whether you have activated or not..
But here is a little secret for ya.

1. Get yourself a small hard drive, doesn't need to be more than about 20
Gigs.

2. After you set Vista up and get it just how you like it, goto Start > All
Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup Status and Configuration.

3. Choose the Complete PC Backup option.

4. When you are there, click the text that says "Create Backup Now." You
will be prompted by a UAC message, Click to continue.

When the window comes up, asking you where to place your new backup, point
it to your extra (small) hard drive. then Click next.

What this will do is back up your computer's configuration, EXACTLY as it
sits, to a file on that hard drive that is protected, even from you.
Moreover, it is saved as activated, so when you format and restore that
back-up, it is already activated, drivers are already installed, anti-virus
and everything is already running, you will have no problems.

Now, to restore from that back-up, you put your Windows disk in, and instead
of choosing to install, you want to choose the "fix" option. When the prompt
comes up, you choose Complete PC Backup and restore from that backup.

Something else that does, is enable you to play around a little. If you
screw it up, you can always restore from that backup. And using this system,
it will automatically format, re-install, and set everything up, exactly as
it was when you created the backup. And this way only takes about 20 minutes
from disk insert to up and running happy vista.

Hope this helps :-)
 
Thank you Gene Fitz for this excellent piece of info, and to you Julie for
raising the issue in the first place.
Just proves it pays to keep browsing these boards.
Best Regards,
 
http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2006/10/26/Microsoft_clarifies_Vista_activation_to_bit-tech/

Referring to this article, I'd like to know if someone could clarify one
part for me... I like to format my PC every now and then, like many others.
My question is, if my HD is the same, but I am reinstalling it, wouldn't
that mean I'd have to reactivate it? I would think that when the HD is
formatted and a fresh install existing, it would not remember that I
previously activated it.

Unless the MS server has my HD ID and compares it on fresh install?

Anybody know?
Click to expand...

First off that article isn't accurate, this is some flat out wrong info in
there. Second, the EULA for Vista has been updated since that article was
published, so some of the information that was correct at the time it was
published is no longer correct.

But your question is still valid. If you format your drive and reinstall,
you will need to reactivate. But since you are reinstalling on the same
machine it will activate automatically over the internet. This is possible
because unique, but irreversible, information about your hardware
configuration is sent to MS activation servers when you activate.
Activating again on the same hardware will cause the same information to be
sent.
 
In theory, would this work if you have two computers that have identical
configurations?
 
William said:
In theory, would this work if you have two computers that have identical
configurations?
Click to expand...

No. Even the same types of hardware isn't the same hardware. Each piece
has unique indentifiers.
 
Gene said:
Well, Julie, when you format your computer, you wipe out all the stored
information on it. Thus, your computer is freshly loaded. At that point, it
doesn't know whether you have activated or not..
But here is a little secret for ya.

1. Get yourself a small hard drive, doesn't need to be more than about 20
Gigs.

2. After you set Vista up and get it just how you like it, goto Start > All
Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup Status and Configuration.

3. Choose the Complete PC Backup option.

4. When you are there, click the text that says "Create Backup Now." You
will be prompted by a UAC message, Click to continue.

When the window comes up, asking you where to place your new backup, point
it to your extra (small) hard drive. then Click next.

What this will do is back up your computer's configuration, EXACTLY as it
sits, to a file on that hard drive that is protected, even from you.
Moreover, it is saved as activated, so when you format and restore that
back-up, it is already activated, drivers are already installed, anti-virus
and everything is already running, you will have no problems.

Now, to restore from that back-up, you put your Windows disk in, and instead
of choosing to install, you want to choose the "fix" option. When the prompt
comes up, you choose Complete PC Backup and restore from that backup.

Something else that does, is enable you to play around a little. If you
screw it up, you can always restore from that backup. And using this system,
it will automatically format, re-install, and set everything up, exactly as
it was when you created the backup. And this way only takes about 20 minutes
from disk insert to up and running happy vista.

Hope this helps :-)
Click to expand...

I assume this procedure creates an image. Is there a way to create such
an image, burn it to DVDs, and then restore it from the DVDs, instead of
using a HD?
 
another tip along those lines is go into Group Policy Editor and hide that
drive from Explorer. then you won't be tempted to go in a put other things
there, or accidentally delete your backup. I forget the exact location of
that setting, and I haven't looked for it in Vista to be honest, but I doubt
they removed it.

Hello Daze,
 
You will certainly have to reactivate it (Vista won't know that it was
previously activated), but the reactivation should proceed normally over
the internet (unless it's a "large OEM" copy, which ALWAYS requires
telephone activation).

While Vista won't know that it's been activated previously and thus will
require activation, the hash that it sends to the Microsoft server
should cause the server to recognize that the computer and even the hard
drive are the same, and thus activate more or less effortlessly.

It's able to do this because the hash includes the MAC address of the
network card and the SERIAL NUMBER of the hard drive, neither of which
you can easily change (in some cases, it may also include the Intel
serial number of the CPU chip itself). You can make this even more
bullet-proof if you manually restore the volume serial number of the
hard drive partition(s) so that they also have not changed.
 
Re: "would this [reactivation] work if you have two computers that have
identical configurations?"

Generally not. The MAC addresses of the onboard network cards would be
different, the serial numbers of the disk drives (which can be read and
which are part of the hash sent to Microsoft) would be different, and
the serial numbers of the CPU chips would be different (although CPU
serial numbers are often disabled). In addition, it's very possible
that the BIOS' are different. Consequently, Windows and the Microsoft
server will ALMOST always recognize that the computer, while "identical"
[in model number and in configuration] is still a different unit. There
are uncommon situations, however, in which identical but different
computers will not be detected as two separate units, but that is the
exception rather than the rule.
 
Isn't there a file to indicate it is activated that you can backup as it is
on XP
I just can't remember the file name?
Barry Watzman said:
You will certainly have to reactivate it (Vista won't know that it was
previously activated), but the reactivation should proceed normally over
the internet (unless it's a "large OEM" copy, which ALWAYS requires
telephone activation).

While Vista won't know that it's been activated previously and thus will
require activation, the hash that it sends to the Microsoft server should
cause the server to recognize that the computer and even the hard drive
are the same, and thus activate more or less effortlessly.

It's able to do this because the hash includes the MAC address of the
network card and the SERIAL NUMBER of the hard drive, neither of which you
can easily change (in some cases, it may also include the Intel serial
number of the CPU chip itself). You can make this even more bullet-proof
if you manually restore the volume serial number of the hard drive
partition(s) so that they also have not changed.



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Click to expand...




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Now, I would assule that is quite possible, however, understand, first you
will need to use your install disk to boot into repair mode. Second to that,
the image is very large. Mine is about 12.5 GB, so unless you are using
BluRay it will be very difficult to load from a disk.
 
All of the major image programs (Ghost, Acronis True Image, Drive Image
(no longer sold but still available)) have the ability to write the
image directly to a CD or DVD (to some extent, this may depend on the
version of the program you get, later versions are more capable in terms
of the types of devices that they can write to directly). Or, you can
save the image file on an intermediate media or drive and manually burn
it to a CD or DVD later (all of these programs can "split" an image file
into CD or DVD media size pieces).

True Image, at least, has the ability (in recent versions) to make the
CD or DVD media containing the image directly bootable. In other cases,
you boot from a boot floppy or the product CD (which can be copied) and
the image can then be restored directly from the CD or DVD media which
contains it.
 
Barry said:
All of the major image programs (Ghost, Acronis True Image, Drive Image
(no longer sold but still available)) have the ability to write the
image directly to a CD or DVD (to some extent, this may depend on the
version of the program you get, later versions are more capable in terms
of the types of devices that they can write to directly). Or, you can
save the image file on an intermediate media or drive and manually burn
it to a CD or DVD later (all of these programs can "split" an image file
into CD or DVD media size pieces).

True Image, at least, has the ability (in recent versions) to make the
CD or DVD media containing the image directly bootable. In other cases,
you boot from a boot floppy or the product CD (which can be copied) and
the image can then be restored directly from the CD or DVD media which
contains it.
Click to expand...

Yes. I was aware that third-party tools can create images and then allow
one to write them to DVD(s), but I was wondering if Vista's backup can
be used to accomplish this without third-party tools.
 
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