PTravel

I may have changed a hard drive or two (though not the system drive). I removed a USB card to make room for the new NIC.

I'm the manufacturer of this machine -- I built it from scratch in its present incarnation about two to two-and-a-half years ago. I've re-installed the OS twice since building it.

I've had to activate Windows on this machine each time I re-installed the OS. It activated over the internet with no problem, though I recall I once had to call MS and tell them why I was activating the same OS again. That process took no more than 2 minutes and did not include a request for any personal information.

I own two legal copies of Windows XP, one of which runs on my laptop and the other runs on this desktop. In roughly 4 of running XP, I've never had to reactivate the OS and, frankly, this process is intolerable. I'll put up with a 2 minute anonymous phone call or an instantaneous internet connection. I will not stand for 90+ minutes of my time wasted arguing with idiots who demand personal information that I never give out to anyone without a legitimate need to know (because of this personal policy, I've never had a problem with identity theft, and rarely was bothered by telemarketers).

Palal

That's why I suggest you find one of the hacks that disables activation and live with it like millions of others.

bluemonq

Significant hardware change? I bought a ThinkPad back in 2002. A few weeks ago I thought it'd be a good idea to get rid of all the cruft on it by reinstalling Windows. Well, the activation key that was embossed on the bottom was not accepted during the activation process. So I called up tech support. Five minutes later, after innumerable repeats of various codes and keys that the computer generated, I had a working copy of Windows.

Though I am irritated at Microsoft for creating such a twisted path in the name of anti-piracy, I am even more incensed at the people at the root of the problem: the people who pirate copies of Windows. "Information wants to be free," "It's copyright infringement, not stealing," "$300 is too much for a copy of Windows" - I don't care. Why do people feel such a sense of entitlement? Use Linux if you can't afford Windows or don't want to pay for it or don't feel it's worth the money; it works just as well. The only reason I use Windows on any of my boxen is because most of my clients do and sometimes I need to be able to duplicate their problems.

If nobody downloaded copies of Windows or used burned copies of Windows, they wouldn't have to do stuff like activation and WGA, plain and simple. Oh, not out of the goodness of *their* hearts, but so they wouldn't have to spend extra money to hire coders to implement validation technologies.

BTW, what is this "special code" needed to start a "hidden" Activation Wizard? Never heard of such a thing in all the time I've been building and fixing PCs.

BearX220

Oh man... my kid wants to upgrade the video card on our new-ish (XP Pro-running) machine, and you guys are giving me The Fear.

ScottC

Nothing secret, it's just the command line option for starting the activation wizard when it's missing from the start menu:

%systemroot%\system32\oobe\msoobe.exe /a

Why it would be missing from the start menu in the first place is weird, but I've seen stranger things.

ScottC

I really wouldn't worry. There is a chance you'll have to run the activation wizard, but in the countless times I've made changes the activation is done in under 30 seconds. The OP's experience is very very rare.

In the even you've already activated the same key more than 5 times you'll have to call in, and 5 minutes later you'll be done with it. I have a test key here I use on machines which has been activated over 40 times, and they haven't turned me down once.

Of course the activation system is a PITA, but like one of the previous posters said, theft of Microsoft products is a major problem and one can't blame them for protecting their assets.

PTravel

What kind of business model penalizes legitimate customers at the expense of pirates who are not, in the least, inconvenienced? Microsoft assumes that a significant number of customers will simply pass around their copies of legitimate Windows, so they put in this activation virus. The result is that Microsoft has created a huge market for secondary resale of things like volume licensed-software, OEM software, student media and, of course, actual counterfeit software produced by professional and semi-professional infringers.

I don't buy or use counterfeit or otherwise infringing software -- I'm an IP lawyer, and it wouldn't look very good if I did. However, I certainly understand why people consider alternative sources for Microsoft products after this experience. I just returned from China -- had this happened on my laptop, while I was off in the fairly rural areas that I visited where internet was unreliable or unavailable, my choice would have been to make an expensive landline call (I was in places with no cellphone coverage), or have my laptop become an expensive doorstop after three days.

Tell me again why a hacked and infringing product would not be preferrable to a virus-infected genuine product?

Or Microsoft could, as clients of mine do, choose business models that are piracy-resistant. Microsoft's validation scheme is based, only partially, on a desire to head off piracy. Microsoft does not want a significant secondary resale market for its software products. Eliminating the secondary resale market permits it to differentially price its products which, in turn, permits it to penetrate markets that would normally be closed to it because of its arbitrary pricing that is unrelated to the actual R&D and production costs of its products.

As I indicated, the Windows Activation wizard wasn't in my System Tools folder. The run command for this program, which is completely undocumented, is:

oobe/msoobe /a

opus17

Changing a network card will cause a lot of expensive applications to fail, since a lot of their licenses are tied to the MAC address (I'm not talking about store-bought applications, but specialty ones).

PTravel

Can you provide me with any guidance on where to find such a hack?

ScottC

No. And if anyone does post it here I will delete it. Flyertalk is NOT the place to discuss how to bypass Windows activation.

ScottC

There is nothing undocumented about it.

A simple Google search reveals it on 100's of websites:

http://www.google.com/search?q=manua...006-30,GGGL:en

magiciansampras

^ ^

lmz00

Vista comes out in like 10 days... I'd just wait.

PTravel

It is undocumented on Microsoft's website, or, at least to the extent that the various pages that I encountered that lectured me on how evil I was to be using pirated software and how I would have to give Microsoft $149 to "make genuine" MY ALREADY LEGAL, FULLY GENUINE, VALIDLY LICENSED SOFTWARE, had absolutely nothing about this.

In my situation, I had no idea is a system command (or software installed in the system root) -- all I knew was that it was missing from my system tools menu. I assumed I'd have to install something from the original installation disks or, alternatively, that Microsoft would give me an address on the Microsoft site to download it.

Notwithstanding, I'm not running undocumented commands based on someone's webpage instructions I found after a google search unless I know the source very well. For that matter, I can also find all sorts of validation deactivation instructions (which, by the way, and notwithstanding your previous post, do not violate any law, including the DMCA -- it is completely legal to provide those instructions though I will, of course, abide by all instructions from moderators, as well as flight crew and for the same reasons) by using Google but, again, they all entail downloading software that install registry hacks, access system root software, and a variety of other things that, even if scanned by my antivirus software, can still do signficant damage if malicious.

PTravel

And I'll install Vista when, at least, SP1 has been issued. I never upgrade to new Microsoft OSs on their initial release -- too many bugs, too many security holes, and too much incompatibility with the software that I use.