Hi I changed my mobo over the weekend and after reading various things saying that OEM vista was tied to the mobo i was a bit worried about what would happen when i tried to activate my old copy. Thought i'd give it a try and hey presto it worked over the internet no problems at all. Anyone else experience this? Is the general wisdom out there wrong or was i just lucky? Giz
It seems to be a bit of a toss-up. I've also been able to get OEM copies to activate after significant hardware changes like that, but not all the time.
I've had my oem copies of windows reactivate when making hardware changes, both minor and major. On one occasion I did have to phone MS but only got asked to confirm it was only installed on one system before they gave me the code i needed.
you have always been able to reactivate OEM copies of windows ive done it on XP, Vista and now 7. There seems to be a myth that OEM doesnt activate after hardware changes IT DOES. you are not supposed to change hardware but worst case scenario is that it fails to activate and you ring MS autoamted line and it activates then. OEM is tied to your hardware but you can still make changes. Retail you can chop and change as many times as you like as often as you like. MS cannot make you buy a new license because a motherboard went faulty as its not your fault. i would imagine if you keep swapping out hardware all the time and trying to re-activate it would eventually get flagged up as an invalid key.
It's because it look at motherboard chipset type. For instance, if you have a Nforce 4 and you change it to X58, than you will get the activation. But if you change it with another Nforce 4, then you should be fine. If you change it with an Nforce 4 32X SLI, your still fine.
I had a dead mobo on an old Athlon system. Swapped out to a P4 and powered up to check all was ok. Booted into windows on old HDD and got error about large hardware change and activation was required. As a fresh install was planned anyway I reinstalled and then activated using original key without issue.
Mine have always reactivated (Vista and XP) without any problems, as for the myth, it seams to be very wide spead as eveyone ive talked with says that the OEM system is tied to the exact hardware when installed!
So it seems like a myth then? Prob spread by MS so to scare people into buying a new version of windows! Was all a bit of a mistake really, was having probs with PC not starting properly mis-diagnosed it as motherboard prob so swapped my X48, Q6600 for a P55 i5 750 only to find pc was still not starting properly and discoving all i needed was a new PSU. Ah well these things happen got some nice new guts in my pc to show for it Hopefully anyone googling for such info in the future will come across this and have any worries abated. Giz
Windows Product Activation (WPA) on Windows XP has full details on what Windows (XP) activation checks for (and allows). Motherboard swaps typically trigger multiple hardware changes but if enough elements (7) remain the same (in particular, if you have a separate network card which counts as 3 votes) then re-activation can be avoided.
IIRC, even once the activation count is finished, you can still ring MS, explain the situation and get your version back activated again. I did that with XP Media Center i think. As long as you explain to them that the old components are dead/binned etc and can't be used to build another system you should be fine. Suprisingly helpful
I'm exactly the same, managed to go from x38 mobo and E5200 to i7 and brand spanking new hardware and Vista was fine with it? Most peturbatory, however I'm glad it wasn't just me that did this >.<
Wow, lol I was just going to make a thread on this, good thing I checked. How do these rules pertain to hard drives, and where the windows copy is installed? I plan on buying a solid state drive in the near future to use as a boot drive. My thinking was I would backup the few files I need to keep, install windows onto the ssd, then use hdderase to wipe my current drive, which will then be devoted to storage. Will the OEM license prevent me from doing this, since I guess the hard drive could be considered the core of the computer software wise? EDIT: This is with Windows 7 Premium, not xp Thanks! -SPNKR
its fine, and yes you can usually activate over the internet, when you change the board, and processor, if you havent had to activate in the last 6 months, it does however break the terms of the oem license, as what you have done is considered an upgrade. so whilst it can be done, its not totally legal. It means if you need help that only microsoft can help with ie a specialist patch, microsoft could tell you to get stuffed. As can the OEM, who originally installed the windows.
