Activation Concern

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I reformat my HDD and reinstall Windows XP on my PC regularly, sometimes a
frequency of once a month. I also constantly do upgrades. So far Windows
XP's activation process has been successful. Is there a limited amount of
times I can do this? I am afraid I am getting closer to the limit and will
eventually be unable to use my copy of XP that I purchased for the same PC.

The thing that sparked my concern, I just had flashed my BIOS, that's all I
did and I was required to re-activate Windows XP. I almost have to be close
to my limit if there is one. I have gathered information reguarding
activation at microsoft.com, it states the following:

Re-installation and re-activation on the same PC can be done an unlimited
number of times.

This is found at http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/activation_faq.mspx , under
the headings "Activation and Product Licensing Policies
How many installations can be made with one product license? Has this
changed with the introduction of Product Activation?"

Is it correct to say, with the above giving information regarding my
circumstances, that I have nothing to worry about?
 
Windows Product Activation (WPA) on Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm


[Courtesy of MS-MVP Alex Nichol]

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User


Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| I reformat my HDD and reinstall Windows XP on my PC regularly, sometimes a
| frequency of once a month. I also constantly do upgrades. So far Windows
| XP's activation process has been successful. Is there a limited amount of
| times I can do this? I am afraid I am getting closer to the limit and will
| eventually be unable to use my copy of XP that I purchased for the same PC.
|
| The thing that sparked my concern, I just had flashed my BIOS, that's all I
| did and I was required to re-activate Windows XP. I almost have to be close
| to my limit if there is one. I have gathered information reguarding
| activation at microsoft.com, it states the following:
|
| Re-installation and re-activation on the same PC can be done an unlimited
| number of times.
|
| This is found at http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/activation_faq.mspx , under
| the headings "Activation and Product Licensing Policies
| How many installations can be made with one product license? Has this
| changed with the introduction of Product Activation?"
|
| Is it correct to say, with the above giving information regarding my
| circumstances, that I have nothing to worry about?
 
daygo140 said:
I reformat my HDD and reinstall Windows XP on my PC regularly, sometimes a
frequency of once a month.
Click to expand...


Why? It seems like such a terrible waste of time. There's certainly
no technical reason for doing so.


I also constantly do upgrades. So far Windows
XP's activation process has been successful. Is there a limited amount of
times I can do this? I am afraid I am getting closer to the limit and will
eventually be unable to use my copy of XP that I purchased for the same PC.
Click to expand...


There's no limit to the number of times you can reinstall and
activate the same WinXP license on the same PC. Nor is there ever a
charge. Nor does a Product Key (so long as it's not an evaluation
license) ever expire. 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


The thing that sparked my concern, I just had flashed my BIOS, that's all I
did and I was required to re-activate Windows XP. I almost have to be close
to my limit if there is one. I have gathered information reguarding
activation at microsoft.com, it states the following:

Re-installation and re-activation on the same PC can be done an unlimited
number of times.
Click to expand...


Then why post the question if you already know the answer?


How many installations can be made with one product license?
Click to expand...


As you've read, there's no limit, as long as the license is only being
installed on a single computer at any given time.

Has this
changed with the introduction of Product Activation?"
Click to expand...


No, this hasn't changed. One License, one computer, just as it's
always been, for all Windows operating systems. WPA is simply an
enforcement mechanism.




--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
Carey said:
Windows Product Activation (WPA) on Windows XP
http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm ....
Click to expand...
....

Carey,
Please don't assume I'm trying to be a PITA; I've also wondered
the same, though I don't reformat that often.
I"ve followed various links here and there in an effort to
find out, and to date have not found any that are consistant. I
couldn't prove it, but I've even had conflicting infos from MS
itself.

Could you or somoene, please state, in plain English for the
layman, what your interpretation of the number of installs is
under a couple of your-choice circumstances for reference?
Let's say one condition might be reformatting the drive.
And the other condition, say a lightning hit and luckily only
several parts required replacing, and it's also going to be
tagged as a diffeent machine due to the changes (This one's a
true story but not on an XP machine) <g>.


OK, how come I'd want to do that so often?

I have two computers: One, pristine but far from virgin,
perfectly set up for me, and FAST!. I have another machine which
is the one for me (or anyone else around) to use for "play".
using the 'net, some games, and especially for checking out and
evaluating all those nice little pieces of software out there
ranging from freee to many hundreds of dollars. THAT software,
even things that should be known-good, goes thru the "play"
machine before it makes it to my "good" machine. The "play"
machine gets frogged up fairly often, maybe every three months,
give or take. BOTH machines run the same av, adware protection,
sw firewall, etc. and are pretty well protected.
I do NOT have unlicensed software on either machine, but I
have been known to stretch the rules a tiny bit, for
trouble-shooting purposes/evaluation purposes. ALL MS software
however, IS legal except for a possible very short duration
experiment or two in the past!! A license per machine!
So, whenever the "play" machine gets into trouble, if I can't
solve it in a few minutes, say a half hour, depending, I just pop
a streamlined CD in it and recover from the git-go. Since SP2
that's a lot easier and faster, plus it allows me to get
experience with XP installs - the install onscreens can be
confusing to people in more than a couple places. Then unless it
was a virus, which hasn't happened yet, I just Restore from
backup and it's back to business.
No, the two machines are not identical but both are P4s and
use Creative and a couple others. No SCSI, but I hope to change
that in a couple months - another machine has gone belly up and I
like the periphs on it <g>.

If you'd like to take this to a new thread, that's OK with me,
but I thought it might be better to keep similar stuff together.
Feel free to set F'ups if you think it's the right thing to do.

Regards,

Pop
 
Pop said:
...

Carey,
Please don't assume I'm trying to be a PITA; I've also wondered
the same, though I don't reformat that often.
I"ve followed various links here and there in an effort to
find out, and to date have not found any that are consistant. I
couldn't prove it, but I've even had conflicting infos from MS
itself.

Could you or somoene, please state, in plain English for the
layman, what your interpretation of the number of installs is
under a couple of your-choice circumstances for reference?
Let's say one condition might be reformatting the drive.
And the other condition, say a lightning hit and luckily only
several parts required replacing, and it's also going to be
tagged as a diffeent machine due to the changes (This one's a
true story but not on an XP machine) <g>.


OK, how come I'd want to do that so often?

I have two computers: One, pristine but far from virgin,
perfectly set up for me, and FAST!. I have another machine which
is the one for me (or anyone else around) to use for "play".
using the 'net, some games, and especially for checking out and
evaluating all those nice little pieces of software out there
ranging from freee to many hundreds of dollars. THAT software,
even things that should be known-good, goes thru the "play"
machine before it makes it to my "good" machine. The "play"
machine gets frogged up fairly often, maybe every three months,
give or take. BOTH machines run the same av, adware protection,
sw firewall, etc. and are pretty well protected.
I do NOT have unlicensed software on either machine, but I
have been known to stretch the rules a tiny bit, for
trouble-shooting purposes/evaluation purposes. ALL MS software
however, IS legal except for a possible very short duration
experiment or two in the past!! A license per machine!
So, whenever the "play" machine gets into trouble, if I can't
solve it in a few minutes, say a half hour, depending, I just pop
a streamlined CD in it and recover from the git-go. Since SP2
that's a lot easier and faster, plus it allows me to get
experience with XP installs - the install onscreens can be
confusing to people in more than a couple places. Then unless it
was a virus, which hasn't happened yet, I just Restore from
backup and it's back to business.
No, the two machines are not identical but both are P4s and
use Creative and a couple others. No SCSI, but I hope to change
that in a couple months - another machine has gone belly up and I
like the periphs on it <g>.

If you'd like to take this to a new thread, that's OK with me,
but I thought it might be better to keep similar stuff together.
Feel free to set F'ups if you think it's the right thing to do.

Regards,

Pop
Click to expand...

You can reactivate on the same machine as many times as you like, though
you may have to phone MS to reactivate, especially when you change out a
few hardware components.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei
 
You can reactivate on the same machine as many times as you like, though
you may have to phone MS to reactivate, especially when you change out a
few hardware components.
Click to expand...
Kurt
Click to expand...

This WPA thing is a PITA for anyone who tinkers. I had to call in 5 times
last
year. The call goes to one place and then transfers to another. I get
activated
but it is still a PITA. I have paid for copies of MSDOS 5 and MSDOS 6.22,
W95 A, B, and C. W98 and W98SE, W2KPro, XPHome and XPPro.
This is a lot of money spent to then get treated in a PITA manner.
 
|
| | > Pop wrote:
| >> Carey Frisch [MVP] wrote:
| >>> Windows Product Activation (WPA) on Windows XP
| >>> http://aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm
| >> ...
| >>>> This is found at
| >>>> http://www.microsoft.com/piracy/activation_faq.mspx ,
| >>>> under the headings "Activation and Product Licensing
| ****some snipping****
| >> Carey,
| >> Please don't assume I'm trying to be a PITA; I've also wondered
| >> the same, though I don't reformat that often.
| >> I"ve followed various links here and there in an effort to
| >> find out, and to date have not found any that are consistant. I
| >> couldn't prove it, but I've even had conflicting infos from MS
| >> itself.
|
| >> Pop
|
| > You can reactivate on the same machine as many times as you like, though
| > you may have to phone MS to reactivate, especially when you change out a
| > few hardware components.
|
| > Kurt
|
| This WPA thing is a PITA for anyone who tinkers. I had to call in 5 times
| last
| year. The call goes to one place and then transfers to another. I get
| activated
| but it is still a PITA. I have paid for copies of MSDOS 5 and MSDOS 6.22,
| W95 A, B, and C. W98 and W98SE, W2KPro, XPHome and XPPro.
| This is a lot of money spent to then get treated in a PITA manner.

Yes, a real PITA when you consider that the MS system is based on guilty
until proven innocent for paying customers.
 
Frank said:
This WPA thing is a PITA for anyone who tinkers. I had to call in 5
times last
year. The call goes to one place and then transfers to another. I
get activated
but it is still a PITA. I have paid for copies of MSDOS 5 and MSDOS
6.22, W95 A, B, and C. W98 and W98SE, W2KPro, XPHome and XPPro.
This is a lot of money spent to then get treated in a PITA manner.
Click to expand...

I agree. That why most tinkerers should make themselves a Corp XP copy.

--
Peace!
Kurt
Self-anointed Moderator
microscum.pubic.windowsexp.gonorrhea
http://microscum.com
"Trustworthy Computing" is only another example of an Oxymoron!
"Produkt-Aktivierung macht frei
 
daygo140 said:
I reformat my HDD and reinstall Windows XP on my PC regularly, sometimes a
frequency of once a month. I also constantly do upgrades. So far Windows
XP's activation process has been successful. Is there a limited amount of
times I can do this? I am afraid I am getting closer to the limit and will
eventually be unable to use my copy of XP that I purchased for the same PC.
Click to expand...

No - you can re activate on the same, or substantially the same,
hardware as many times as you like. See www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm

But I would not think of doing such a clean install monthly as a matter
of routine maintenance. It is entirely unneeded in XP, whatever may
have been advice in Win95 days
 
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