Validation required... WEIRD!

[vista user]

I'm running Vista64 ultimate SP1 and had to reactive a month or two ago
because of hardware changes.

Tonight I flashed my bios (only thing I did) and I was notified I had to
activate Vista again! WTF

It took about 20min last time... what a pain in the arse.

I decided to attempt an online reactivation and low and behold Vista
reactivated???

How could this be? I installed once with the key. The second time I had to
call Microsoft (in India I think) and the third validation was OK online?

I don't know if this has happed to others but I thought I'd share my weird
experience with the latest and greatest Micro$oft product.

Why did this happen tonight?

 

[Mick Murphy]

It thought Bios update was a major hardware change.

 

[Gary Mount]

Bios is software.

It thought Bios update was a major hardware change.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Yes, but it alters the basic information that is passed to the operating
system about the motherboard and its components. I major rewrite of the
hardware instruction set can easily be seen as a major change of hardware,
even though the hardware ID's remain the same. Since activation is triggered
by the operating system's interpretation of the hardware in use, this
seemingly inocuous update can trigger the need to reactivate.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[vista user]

I guess the bigger question is why/how Microsoft permitted me to validate my
OS online.

It was after all validated the key online with the initial install and
several months later by telephone.

The third time permitted online again... this is the weird part.

 

[Curious]

IMHO it is because when it compared the details of your new configuration it
decided that it was in fact the same installation.
It did the same for me when I changed the MOBO and CPU but did not change
anything else especially not the disk drive OS or any other hardware.

 

[John Barnes]

The BIOS, Drivers and especially Firmware are software but are seen by the
operating system as if they are part of the hardware.

 

[Robert Pendell]

I'm running Vista64 ultimate SP1 and had to reactive a month or two ago
because of hardware changes.

Tonight I flashed my bios (only thing I did) and I was notified I had to
activate Vista again! WTF

It took about 20min last time... what a pain in the arse.

I decided to attempt an online reactivation and low and behold Vista
reactivated???

How could this be? I installed once with the key. The second time I had
to call Microsoft (in India I think) and the third validation was OK
online?

I don't know if this has happed to others but I thought I'd share my
weird experience with the latest and greatest Micro$oft product.

Why did this happen tonight?

Hmm... maybe they finally fixed it. I have been running Vista Ultimate
under a VM for about the past year. Every time I have to reinstall it
is a guaranteed call-in to Microsoft. After calling in about 10 times
over a 2-week period I got smart. I created a master image then built
all new VM's around it. This image has Vista already activated. On
that note I also got the whole thing down to a science. They answer the
phone and I let them ask their first question and I answer with "Yes I
have activated this license before and this is the only computer it is
running on." They usually go ahead with the activation after that.

P.S. - I have a TechNet Plus Vista Ultimate license key that I use for
this. The VM's get used while I am at work as a troubleshooting aid.
That was recently. Prior to that I was using a retail key that I had
and wasn't using. This frees up the retail key for if I want to do a
real install later on.