Activation and licensing

[Tom Westfall]

I am a system builder who recently had a customer with a
Windows XP system have a hard drive failure. I was able
to image (Ghost) the drive to a used drive I had on the
shelf. When I put that drive in his system I had to
reactivate Windows because of the hardware change. Now I
am sending his drive back to the manufacturer for
replacement. When that drive comes back I'll want to do
another image and replace the used drive with the newly
refurbished drive from Seagate. I'm sure I'll be asked to
reactivate again. I am reasonably sure that you can only
activate the same license twice. How do I handle this
third time activation?

 

[D.Currie]

I am a system builder who recently had a customer with a
Windows XP system have a hard drive failure. I was able
to image (Ghost) the drive to a used drive I had on the
shelf. When I put that drive in his system I had to
reactivate Windows because of the hardware change. Now I
am sending his drive back to the manufacturer for
replacement. When that drive comes back I'll want to do
another image and replace the used drive with the newly
refurbished drive from Seagate. I'm sure I'll be asked to
reactivate again. I am reasonably sure that you can only
activate the same license twice. How do I handle this
third time activation?

You may be reasonable sure, but you're absolutely wrong. You can activate on
the same system as many times as you want to. At worst, you may need to call
in the activation, but it's not a big deal.

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Greetings --

There's no limit to the number of times you can reinstall and
activate the same WinXP license on the same PC. If it's been more
than 120 days since you last activated that specific Product Key,
you'll most likely be able to activate via the Internet without
problem. If it's been less, you might have to make a 5 minute phone
call.

Here are the facts pertaining to activation:

Piracy Basics - Microsoft Product Activation
http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/basics/activation/

Windows Product Activation (WPA)
http://www.aumha.org/a/wpa.htm



Bruce Chambers

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