HW Upgrade & Activation

[Epi]

Upgrading motherboard, processor and ram ... will
activation become a headache (meaning: I have to call
customer service to reactivate over a weekend) upon fresh
install? This is a full legal version (retail with
receipt) of WinXP Pro SP1 and currently activated on home
machine.

 

[Rock]

Upgrading motherboard, processor and ram ... will
activation become a headache (meaning: I have to call
customer service to reactivate over a weekend) upon fresh
install? This is a full legal version (retail with
receipt) of WinXP Pro SP1 and currently activated on home
machine.

You probably will need to do at least a repair install. If it's been
more than 120 days since the last time, then it should go through fine
over the internet. If not it will take a 5 minute phone call.

 

[Ron Martell]

Upgrading motherboard, processor and ram ... will
activation become a headache (meaning: I have to call
customer service to reactivate over a weekend) upon fresh
install? This is a full legal version (retail with
receipt) of WinXP Pro SP1 and currently activated on home
machine.

A Repair Install is almost always necessary, and is always advisable,
after replacing the motherboard unless the new motherboard is
identical to the old one.

See http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm for detailed
instructions.

The Repair Install will preserve your installed applications, user
data files, and program configuration settings. All Windows Updates
will have to be reinstalled. And you should have a good backup of any
critical data "just in case". You will also need to have your Windows
XP Product Key available as you will have to enter that during the
repair install.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."

 

[Alex Nichol]

Upgrading motherboard, processor and ram ... will
activation become a headache (meaning: I have to call
customer service to reactivate over a weekend) upon fresh
install?

See www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.htm Unless the CPU is a P III with a
serial number, or you do other changes, you should be OK, but if you
reformat the drive rather than doing a repair reinstall immediately to
match to the new board, it would be worth making use of the hint in the
'Format a drive section'.

However if you have gone 120 days since you last activated, any needed
reactivation will go through on the net anyway