Activation and swapping drives

[James Schroff]

I built my machine about 18-months ago, installing XP-Pro OEM and properly
activating it. There have been no hardware changes made in this time and
XP-info indicates 0 No votes. What I would like to do now is remove the one
and only existing hard drive, replace it with a new drive and do a clean
installation of XP-SP2 for which I have created a properly slipstreamed
bootable CD.

Salvaging documents, driver files, settings and applications are not an
issue whatsoever.

What may be an issue is that after I activate the clean installation, I will
want to swap the hard drives for comparison purposes. Never will both drives
be installed at the same time and never will either drive be installed in
any other machine.

It would seem that there would be no issue with this until I access the
Microsoft Update site under both setups. Will I still be able to swap these
drives back and forth, updating them along the way for as long as like?

Thanks.

 

[D.Currie]

I built my machine about 18-months ago, installing XP-Pro OEM and properly
activating it. There have been no hardware changes made in this time and
XP-info indicates 0 No votes. What I would like to do now is remove the one
and only existing hard drive, replace it with a new drive and do a clean
installation of XP-SP2 for which I have created a properly slipstreamed
bootable CD.

Salvaging documents, driver files, settings and applications are not an
issue whatsoever.

What may be an issue is that after I activate the clean installation, I
will want to swap the hard drives for comparison purposes. Never will both
drives be installed at the same time and never will either drive be
installed in any other machine.

It would seem that there would be no issue with this until I access the
Microsoft Update site under both setups. Will I still be able to swap
these drives back and forth, updating them along the way for as long as
like?

Thanks.

Technically, yes. The update isn't going to care, either. The activation
information is on the computer's hard drive, so once it's happy and
activated, it's not going to care.

According to the Eula...maybe. What you've got is somewhere between a
backup, which is allowed, and multiple installs, which isn't allowed. Some
folks will say it's ok, others will tell you no. Until someone takes a case
like this to court, there's nothing out there but opinions.

 

[James Schroff]

Thanks for your input.

Personally and legally, I feel comfortable with the concept relative to the
EULA. I suppose it may depend on whether a disc containing an installed
version of Windows, by itself, can be legally construed as an
"installation." Not connected to anything else, this disc is little more
than a paperweight in function.

To say that it could be used to makeup some other functioning machine would
be like saying that an installation CD could be used to create another
working system. What could be accomplished and what is being done are two
different things.

I have taken this same approach several times in the past with other
versions of MS-Windows and it has been my salvation more than once when
productivity demands occured prior to the fine tuning of my rather complex
environment and applications.

I was just not sure of how the activation process and its relationship with
the Microsoft Update site may come into play, if at all. I could be wrong, I
thought the Product Key was checked during online updates, but I do not know
if the activation code may be checked against the inventory "votes" and
whether each swap would increment them.

 

[D.Currie]

Thanks for your input.

Personally and legally, I feel comfortable with the concept relative to
the EULA. I suppose it may depend on whether a disc containing an
installed version of Windows, by itself, can be legally construed as an
"installation." Not connected to anything else, this disc is little more
than a paperweight in function.

To say that it could be used to makeup some other functioning machine
would be like saying that an installation CD could be used to create
another working system. What could be accomplished and what is being done
are two different things.

I have taken this same approach several times in the past with other
versions of MS-Windows and it has been my salvation more than once when
productivity demands occured prior to the fine tuning of my rather complex
environment and applications.

Backups are a good thing.

I was just not sure of how the activation process and its relationship
with the Microsoft Update site may come into play, if at all. I could be
wrong, I thought the Product Key was checked during online updates, but I
do not know if the activation code may be checked against the inventory
"votes" and whether each swap would increment them.

Activation has nothing to do with the update site. All of the effects of
activation are on your computer. Once it's been activated, assuming a legit
key, you're done. Unless you start swapping hardware, or course.

The hard drives don't know they've been swapped, they just know they've been
activated with the rest of whatever components are in the computer. The
activation countdown would start if you used that same hard drive, then
started swapping components around. But if you swapped the same component
multiple times, it would only be one vote. So you could swap the video card
a thousand times for one vote. Swapping the hard drive counts as one vote,
too, but only when the install is copied from one drive to another and the
installation sees it's on a new drive. The original installation doesn't
know anything about the new drive, so that's not relevant there.

As far as checking the product key, that doesn't happen, either. Or at least
not by the update site. Once again, that information is on your computer,
not being polled by MS. If the key was illegal (for example), it would be
your computer refusing the (for example) installation of the service pack,
it would not be the update site refusing to give it to your computer.

At the very worst, you might have to call MS for activation. Of all the
times I've done that, the majority of the time I've gotten a computerized
service that requires you to read a number then you get a number back to
type in.

The few times that hasn't worked, the next step is talking to a live person
(with what must be one of the most boring jobs on earth) and they aske a few
questions and as long as you aren't admitting to doing anything illegal, you
get activated. Oddly enough, questions have been different the times I've
called, maybe because the operators are bored, but it's mostly along the
line of whether this is the first install, whether you have the same
software on another computer, and what is causing the need for activation. I
don't get the impression that they're grilling for information, more that
they're logging the reasons activation gets triggered -- formatted the hard
drive, upgraded, whatever. It's not like you tell them that you've upgraded,
then they start asking what you upgraded and why, they just take your answer
and move on. I've never been refused an activation, but then again, I've
always been in compliance with the rules.

 

[James Schroff]

Thanks again for your input, you've answered my questions regarding license
key, activation and Windows Update. Inarguably, I have always been in
compliance with MS EULAs on all my machines, so there are no issues in that
regard.

However, regarding your backup comment, I have an issue. Whatever the backup
mechanism, installations of Windows and most other operating systems will,
over time, collect garbage in both files and registry settings that would
also be restored from a backup medium. This seems inescapable if one
installs, updates and/or removes virtually any program material, retail, or
otherwise. That what is what I am striving to avoid in my approach.

Thanks again for your input.

 

[D.Currie]

I'd still call what you're doing a backup. It's just a backup of the system
before it all gets cluttered.

Data backups are a whole different thing.