[Gllug] (off topic) Windows Activation (was: Netbook recommendations)

[John Edwards]

On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 03:21:14PM +0100, general_email at technicalbloke.com wrote:
> On 18/08/10 12:13, John Edwards wrote:
<snip>
>> Practically you *may* get away with it but the move
>>> will trigger re-activation so you will need to speak to MS on the phone
>>> and sweet talk them: the only excuse they ever accept for this is that
>>> you had a failed motherboard which you had to replace.
>>> 
>> It's all done by an automatic phone service now, no need to talk to
>> anyone. Considering that changing three bits of hardware requires you
>> to re-activate, it is not going to be worth Microsoft paying real
>> people to answer the phone when almost all the people that use it
>> have already paid and so do not generate any money.
> 
> Again you are wrong, you will get nowhere with their automated service
> if you have changed motherboards. You CAN get it reactivated by
> speaking to a person, I know this for a fact because I have done it
> several times, the last being no more than 2 weeks ago. If you can
> transfer the license/install to another machine before it has been
> activated you may be in with a shot but if it is already activated you
> need to speak to a human being at Microsoft (press * several times
> while on the phone to the automated service to transfer to an
> operator) to reactivate it on a different machine, there is no other
> way.

It is possible, I did this twice last month with machines that had
major hardware that needs to be replaced including the motherboard.

The first time worked with the online re-activation. The second time
required a phone call which was answered by the automatic system where
I had to type in (slowly) the OEM license key and it gave back (even
more slowly) a new activation key. My colleagues who normally deal
with Windows machines have similar experiences.

This was Windows XP. With Windows 7 I have only had to do the online
re-activation and have not needed to phone.

It may be that Microsoft are stricter with newer versions of Windows,
or that there was a long gap (a year or more) between the original
activation and the re-activation. Or maybe I was just lucky.


-- 
#---------------------------------------------------------#
|    John Edwards   Email: john at cornerstonelinux.co.uk    |
#---------------------------------------------------------#
-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug