reactivating windows

[darkcorbin]

Operating System: windows xp
Burning Software: none
Anti-virus Software: agv grifsoft
DAEMON Tools Version: latest down load

this really isn't a problem more of a question but why iam i asked to reactivate windows after i install daemon tools it says that my system has change signifly since my first activation yes i upgraded my ram and video card but it never asked until i installed daemon tools

please respond

[mwb1100]

WinXP activation monitors hardware changes, but Microsoft did not make it so sensitive that 1 or 2 changes triggers re-activation.

I believe that more than 3 changes triggers re-activations.

Daemon Tools is seen as a hardware change because it registers itself as a SCSI device.

There's an excellent, in depth analysis here: http://www.licenturion.com/xp/fully-licensed-wpa.txt

I've heard that re-activation is generally not a problem as long as the key has not been reactivated too many times or too recently (or something). However, I have not tried this, so YMMV.

[Underheaven]

...

Nice answer.

[,jACkdA\W]

I do guess (tough that's not my problem anyway 8) ) that since WPA checks for both SCSI Controllers and CD-Rom drives at least (under so-called-normal circumstances), any DT installation should comprise at least two changes with it, so if you just changed one thing more, then yep, there might be a point taken...

[johngalt]

Operating System: WinXP SP2 + all pre-SP3 patches
Burning Software: Nero + ISO Recorder v2
Anti-virus Software: NOD32
DAEMON Tools Version: 3.47

But *that* would imply that changing the # of virtual drives would constitute change #3, and if you then changed ti again, that would be change #4....

[Kinlaadare]

nope, if i remember well, the counter is taken back to 0

[mwb1100]

But *that* would imply that changing the # of virtual drives would constitute change #3, and if you then changed ti again, that would be change #4....

I think that it may be more correct if I said that more than 3 categories of hardware changes need to occur before Windows Product Activation (WPA) forces reactivation.

If multiple changes occur within a category (ie., CD-ROMs), WPA simply notices that CD-ROMs have changed since last activation - it doesn't really care how many times. It needs for a few more categories to change (ie., RAM and video card) to have the reactivation kick in.

I think that's how it works anyway.

[johngalt]

That seems to make more sense (perish the thought of me saying *anything* M$ does makes sense....)

[Lord Delmar]

Operating System: Xp Pro x64
Burning Software: Media player 10 *cries*
Anti-virus Software: Avast *sighs*
DAEMON Tools Version: awaiting 64-bit version

Heh, you guys actually don't want to know the specifics about how windows determines when you need to re-activate. Has to do with the point system yes, but it goes farther than that...and the 'counter' resets after I believe 6 months. There is a knowledge base article about here :

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;302878#5h

Sorry about not being able to link it directly, but new to the forums.

*edited because I forgot what AV I was using *grin*

[Underheaven]

licenturion

Just for the record that KB article doesn't mention anything about time or months :wink: That time period idea may be a rumor, though it sounds true.

[mwb1100]

There are several articles on the net (none from Microsoft as far as I can tell) that mention a 120 day 'reset'.

If these articles are correct (which may not be the case), this might mean that the count of hardware changes on the local machine are reset after about 4 months of no changes, so the next hardware change is seen as the first.

However, this would not necessarily let you install a copy of XP on another machine using the same key, since that machine would still need to activate and there's nothing that says that Microsoft will reset their Product Key activation database.

This would just make Windows less sensitive to hardware changes that happen over a long period of time.

[Lord Delmar]

Hmm, I just re-read it and you are right. Odd, I could have sworn that was the one that had the time limit in it. I will do a bit more research on it and see if I can find anything 'official'. I used to work at Dell many moons ago in their corporate support center and I think there was an internal article about it, but might have been the Dell OEM version only. If nothing else, might make a call to the big M myself.