Updating BIOS in Win XP-activation security wont allow

[motherboard bios upgrader]

Last year I tried to install the latest BIOS update for
my ASUS A7V8X board, but XP thought I was trying to steal
XP and the activation system would not allow boot up. So
I reinstalled my old BIOS and everything worked fine. I
communicated with MSFT and they denied my problem
existed, yet it's clear that the original version of XP
would not allow certain hardware or BIOS updates, e.g. if
you replace too much hardware at once, XP assumes it's
being bootlegged. Does anybody know if MSFT has fixed
this problem in XP, or will I need to try a BIOS update
again to see if they have??????

 

[Nick Burns]

What problems were you having with the old bios...?

 

[Navid]

Last year I tried to install the latest BIOS update for
my ASUS A7V8X board, but XP thought I was trying to steal
XP and the activation system would not allow boot up. So
I reinstalled my old BIOS and everything worked fine. I
communicated with MSFT and they denied my problem
existed, yet it's clear that the original version of XP
would not allow certain hardware or BIOS updates, e.g. if
you replace too much hardware at once, XP assumes it's
being bootlegged. Does anybody know if MSFT has fixed
this problem in XP, or will I need to try a BIOS update
again to see if they have??????

There are specific hardware components that XP monitors
to decide if too many components have changed or not.
According to Microsoft
http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/basics/activation/mpafaq.asp,
those are:
Display adapter, SCSI adapter, IDE adapter, network adapter MAC address,
RAM amount, processor type, processor serial number, hard drive device, hard
drive
volume ID, CD ROM/CD-RW/DVD-ROM.
Each has 1 vote except the MAC address that has 3 votes.
When each of these is changed, you get a negative vote (3 for the MAC).
I believe you can have a maximum of 3 negative votes and still not require
to
re-activate.

The only thing I can think of to result in what you have experienced is if
you are at the boundary (3 negative votes) and a setting in the new BIOS
has resulted in a hardware on your motherboard to be detected that was not
detected before resulting in the forth negative vote.

 

[Yves Leclerc]

I never trusted Windows BIOS update. I have successfully updateed my ASUS
P4B266-C BIOS from a DOS boot diskette.

Y.

 

[Robert Moir]

The only thing I can think of to result in what you have experienced
is if you are at the boundary (3 negative votes) and a setting in the
new BIOS has resulted in a hardware on your motherboard to be
detected that was not detected before resulting in the forth negative
vote.

Thats possible but another, possibly more likely, explanation is that this
motherboard and copy of XP came together, and XP is an OEM copy which the
OEM has bios-locked to its computers.


--
--
Rob Moir, Microsoft MVP for servers & security
Website - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk
Virtual PC 2004 FAQ - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/VirtualPC2004FAQ.html

Kazaa - Software update services for your Viruses and Spyware.

 

[Navid]

Thats possible but another, possibly more likely, explanation is that this
motherboard and copy of XP came together, and XP is an OEM copy which the
OEM has bios-locked to its computers.


--
--
Rob Moir, Microsoft MVP for servers & security
Website - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk
Virtual PC 2004 FAQ - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/VirtualPC2004FAQ.html

Kazaa - Software update services for your Viruses and Spyware.

Wow,
That's interesting. Is there any possible workaround to allow the bios
update?

Would the original poster be able to upgrade the BIOS and then activate if
it
has been more than 4 months since he last activated?

 

[Robert Moir]

Wow,
That's interesting. Is there any possible workaround to allow the
bios update?

No idea. I don't usually work with XP and won't pretend to know that much
about product activation. I suspect that if my idea is true then the thing
to do at this point for them would be to speak to their supplier; clearly
Bioses do need to be updated so there must logically be a way to do it. Of
course I could be wrong about the bios locking being affected by bios
upgrades too.

Would the original poster be able to upgrade the BIOS and then
activate if it
has been more than 4 months since he last activated?

Same answer, don't know enough to comment and I won't waste anyones time
pretending that I do. OEM stuff is tied tightly to the first piece of
hardware it is activated upon however and I don't know if that changes how
it works.

 

[Guest]

I think you nailed. But, the problem is XP won't boot or
even get to the activation screen--the system goes dark!

 

[motherboard BIOS upgrader]

No, they didn't come together, just the opposite. I used
Win XP home upgrade over Win 98SE.

 

[motherboard BIOS upgrader]

None. But I need the BIOS upgrade for the motherboard to
accept a faster CPU. I'm using AMD XP 1800+ and want to
go up to 2800+.

 

[Alex Nichol]

Last year I tried to install the latest BIOS update for
my ASUS A7V8X board, but XP thought I was trying to steal
XP and the activation system would not allow boot up. So
I reinstalled my old BIOS and everything worked fine. I
communicated with MSFT and they denied my problem
existed, yet it's clear that the original version of XP
would not allow certain hardware or BIOS updates, e.g. if
you replace too much hardware at once, XP assumes it's
being bootlegged.

Read up at www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm

It is not clear if the BIOS was in a machine you bought new with XP
installed, in which case you broke the 'BIOS lock' and introduced
activation. Or it may just have been the final straw of a series of
hardware changes. Either way, it was so long after installation that it
would not allow activation on the net. If you had SP1 installed it
gives 3 days grace in such circumstances in which you would be able to
boot normally, get on the net and activate in seconds