Which hardware components are tied to O/S?

[MpG]

In the near-future, I expect to be doing a fair bit of musical hardware. I'll be swapping stuff between rigs, ranging from processors, video cards, memory, sound cards, wi-fi cards, and optical drives. The one thing I will be keeping together are the various motherboards and their respective O/S', although each will be getting a complete re-format and reinstall.

Before I get to that, however, I just wanted to confirm that there won't be any problems. As I've always understood it, the only thing that Windows registers is the motherboard the specific copy is attached to. Is this correct? Or should I be prepared to call up MSTech to explain why my copies of Windows have suddenly become attached to new motherboards?

[Tazer-[X]]

????? ummm, maybe you wanna read up on the mcse core first. there is anything thats ties to an OS. Fist, lets talk about the hardware abbstraction layer, than drivers.......

[JD]

I think if you keep the motherboard with the OS it should be fine. Though you'd probably be better off just not activating Windows at all and just doing clean installs each time you swap various components so there's no conflicting drivers and what not.

[encorp]

You'll be fine, it's tied to the mobo and somewhat to the hdd. It's not a big deal though; just call microsoft if you run out of installs and tell them you had a part failure and that it's the same system and you are the only one using a copy on one machine and they'll hook you right up again.

[MpG]

Yeah, I'll be doing complete re-installs, but the new configurations will be long-term, so I'll be wanting to have them activated. I know stuff like video cards and memory sticks aren't an issue, but all my past re-installs have just been to keep garbage from building up, without any major hardware changes. Was hoping that I wouldn't have to deal with tech support on top of everything else, good to know that won't be an issue.

[3.0charlie]

XP: Technical Details on Microsoft Product Activation for Windows XP

Vista: Quick start: Activation FAQ

[Chilly]

Originally Posted by encorp

You'll be fine, it's tied to the mobo and somewhat to the hdd. It's not a big deal though; just call microsoft if you run out of installs and tell them you had a part failure and that it's the same system and you are the only one using a copy on one machine and they'll hook you right up again.

Agreed, I've never had a problem with the Windows Activation Hotline people. Also from what I know off my head, hardware fingerprint stored on MS's servers is flushed/erased every 6 months anyways.

[sswilson]

I've had to re-activate based on Motherboard, CPU swaps and (believe it or not... :) ) I actually had one after a bios flash!!!!! :)

Never had a problem with getting XP renewed, but after a while it requires a call for every reload.

[Xilikon]

I triggered activation after swapping the cpu and hdd. It then told me I used up all the licenses so I just picked the Phone Activation and asked a representative. I explained the situation (sugarcoated the story a bit, telling how my hdd failed and a swap with backup triggered it for nothing). He then asked some simple questions like "is the OS installed on more than one computer" and such then they reactivated it fine.

I did that pretty often with OEM licences and it works 100% as long as you are sure it's just 1 computer per COA.

[MpG]

Originally Posted by 3.0charlie

XP: Technical Details on Microsoft Product Activation for Windows XP

Vista: Quick start: Activation FAQ

Golden. Heaven forbid Google bother giving me those pages.