Activation after upgrading Disk to SATA and RAID INCH6R

[Armin Heinlein]

I had a Vista Ulitmate (upgrade) installation running on a RAID ITE8212 (IDE
PATA drives). Because performance was slow I upgraded to SATA drives using
RAID INCH6R. After reinstalling the Vista Ultimate upgrade it asked me to
activate again (after one week) and when I entered my serial number it tells
me to call Microsoft to reactivate or to purchase a new license.

I thought a disk upgrade does not require the phone call and will activate
in the background automatically. I heard once you only have five times to
reactivate. Is this right? Does anyone know how many times you can
reactivate?

TIA
Armin

 

[Tom Lake]

I thought a disk upgrade does not require the phone call and will activate

in the background automatically. I heard once you only have five times to
reactivate. Is this right? Does anyone know how many times you can
reactivate?

I've reactivated one of our machines thirty times so far. No hassles other
than
having to type in a humongous code.

Tom Lake

 

[Michael Solomon]

I had a Vista Ulitmate (upgrade) installation running on a RAID
ITE8212 (IDE PATA drives). Because performance was slow I upgraded
to SATA drives using RAID INCH6R. After reinstalling the Vista
Ultimate upgrade it asked me to activate again (after one week) and
when I entered my serial number it tells me to call Microsoft to
reactivate or to purchase a new license.
I thought a disk upgrade does not require the phone call and will
activate in the background automatically. I heard once you only have
five times to reactivate. Is this right? Does anyone know how many
times you can reactivate?

TIA
Armin

The hardware change likely triggered the need for a phone call. Activation
creates a hash which, if changed enough, can trigger the need for a phone
call. Usually, user explanation of the change is all that is necessary. As
long as there are no hardware changes, activation is usually seamless and
requires not much more than following the prompt to activate over the
Internet. There is no limit on the number of times you can activate with a
standard retail disk, upgrade or otherwise.

 

[Armin Heinlein]

Thank you. I just reactivated it. I guess when I upgrade my motherboard,
processor and memory I do this all at once .

However, I thought a disk change is not significant enough - I thought I
read this on the Vista support site

Anyway, I am ready to get "Wow"ed again.

Armin

 

[Michael Solomon]

Thank you. I just reactivated it. I guess when I upgrade my
motherboard, processor and memory I do this all at once .

However, I thought a disk change is not significant enough - I
thought I read this on the Vista support site

Anyway, I am ready to get "Wow"ed again.

Armin

Sometimes, it depends upon the effect the hardware change has on other
devices. You have to remember, when you read something about what will or
won't cause the user to have to activate again, the information is a
generalization; it doesn't necessarily mean it will apply in all cases.

Activating, really shouldn't be an issue because it is pretty seamless even
if you have to make a call. When the hash changes, the activation center
doesn't know what you've done. Nonetheless, within certain limitations,
usually all you have to do is activate again over the Internet. If
something has caused a bigger change in the hash for whatever reason, when
you're prompted to call, the center basically wants to know what happened.

 

[Guest]

I have ultimate retail and I'm about to swap out my mb, cpu and memory. I'm
hoping that it will go smoothly and I can get away without doing a clean
install. Since I do have the retail version I should be able to reinstall
without any hassles right? This is why I bought the retail in the first
place so I could upgrade without any problems.

 

[Michael Solomon]

I have ultimate retail and I'm about to swap out my mb, cpu and
memory. I'm hoping that it will go smoothly and I can get away
without doing a clean install. Since I do have the retail version I
should be able to reinstall without any hassles right? This is why I
bought the retail in the first place so I could upgrade without any
problems.

You'll likely be prompted to call the activation center. Just tell them
what you've done, you should get activated. In the case of what you
describe, it's not much different than moving it to a new computer only in
your case, you're upgrading various hardware components all at once.