When is the Activation hardware profile first created/saved?

[jdub82]

Hopefully this is a simple question...

According to this website:
http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,1697,1151566,00.asp

"The WPA.DBL file is actually an RC4-encrypted database of the expiration
info of your installation, the confirmation of activation, the hardware
configuration at activation time, and the current hardware configuration."

I upgraded most of the parts in my computer and then did a reformat / fresh
install of Windows XP. I have not activated it yet, and I have changed some
of the hardware since the install (added some more memory and enabled some
things that didn't have drivers installed).

So my question is, will those hardware changes count against the limit, or
is the original hardware profile created *during* the activation?

I had a problem previously where I had activated XP but then it deactivated
the next day for some reason and I had to call the support line to
reactivate. I want to make sure that isn't going to happen again

 

[DL]

If you have to phone online activation, whats the problem?
However if your winxp is OEM you need to tell them hw failed & you replaced
it
It also depends on how long since last activation - 120 days has been
mentioned -

 

[jdub82]

This didn't tell me anything about when the hardware profile is created.

The issue (which I guess I wasn't very clear about) is that I don't want to
have to activate twice for a single install. Because if I reformat yet again
before the 120 days I'll have to call the activation line anyway, and I'd
rather have as few activations on record as possible... for the obvious
reason.


j

 

[Bob Harris]

As best as I can tell, when doing a clean install, the hardware profile is
not recorded until you activate the first time.

Thus, it is wise to make all changes/tweaks to hardware before activating.
You have 30 days.

Additionally, changes to the size/format of the first partition on the
primary hard drive and any BIOS updates may count as "hardware" changes for
the purpose of XP activation. The first may result in a new volume ID and
the second may result in what appears to be a different motherboard. The
first can be fixed via a tool now available from Microsoft; the second has
no fix:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897436.aspx