I'm having to contact MS to reactivate. After changing GPU!!!

Gepetto

Gepetto

Gepetto

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I swapped my Graphics card last night and my Retail Windows 7 now requires re-activation!!:mad:

I thought the OS was tied to the Motherboard, and indeed, I did phone up to re-activate when I moved to my Shuttle. That's fair enough, but now it looks as if I'm going to have to contact them again for the Graphics Card.

What next? Dare I change my RAM, HDD's, or my PSU. It's becoming ridiculous!
 
You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. You phone a freephone number and dial a few numbers into the automated system, you'll be activated in less than 5 minutes.
 
Its not a silly feature and its here to stay in one form or another, it would have taken longer to write the OP than to call MS and use the automated system or the text message system.
 
Gepetto said:
I swapped my Graphics card last night and my Retail Windows 7 now requires re-activation!!:mad:

I thought the OS was tied to the Motherboard, and indeed, I did phone up to re-activate when I moved to my Shuttle. That's fair enough, but now it looks as if I'm going to have to contact them again for the Graphics Card.

What next? Dare I change my RAM, HDD's, or my PSU. It's becoming ridiculous!
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darethey.jpg
 
Does this apply to changing components on pre-built systems too? I'm expecting a new 5850 within the next hour to chuck in a year old pre-built system. I would've thought the recovery disk I was given would pick up on the Bios version not how many hardware changes I make.
 
Whenever a major change is made, MS asks the OS to 'phone home'. Its just a check that windows hasnt been used on another PC, or that the OEM version hasnt been moved to another PC (Against the terms of the licensing).
Sometimes a BIOS flash can trigger it. I have had this a few times. Mostly it just does it itself. Sometimes it must be done on the phone. Takes a couple of minutes and you don't even need to speak to anyone!
 
Meatball said:
You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. You phone a freephone number and dial a few numbers into the automated system, you'll be activated in less than 5 minutes.
Click to expand...

HarryPainful said:
Its not a silly feature and its here to stay in one form or another, it would have taken longer to write the OP than to call MS and use the automated system or the text message system.
Click to expand...


Everytime I've tried to use the automated system, where you enter the digits yourself, it hasn't worked. That's on four occasions now, twice with Vista and now twice with 7!

So five minutes or so to try that, and then 10 minutes or so on the phone afterwards. And it looks as if it's going to be every time you change a bit of hardware.

Thererfore it's hardly going to take me longer to type a sentence, or be less than 5 minutes! Don't be so bloody patronising! :mad:

It is silly, if not stupid, and intrusive. What can't MS recognise what has changed in terms of Activating it, instead of de-activating it? If the OS system knows I've changed the GPU it also knows I haven't changed anythging else.
 
There was me thinking that buying a retail copy would forgo the need for all of this re-activation malarkey. Ho hum.

However as mentioned above, it's no big deal really.
 
Gepetto said:
Everytime I've tried to use the automated system, where you enter the digits yourself, it hasn't worked. That's on four occasions now, twice with Vista and now twice with 7!

So five minutes or so to try that, and then 10 minutes or so on the phone afterwards. And it looks as if it's going to be every time you change a bit of hardware.

Thererfore it's hardly going to take me longer to type a sentence, or be less than 5 minutes! Don't be so bloody patronising! :mad:

It is silly, if not stupid, and intrusive. What can't MS recognise what has changed in terms of Activating it, instead of de-activating it? If the OS system knows I've changed the GPU it also knows I haven't changed anythging else.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the issue lies with the user. I've used the telephone system numerous times and not once has it failed.
 
I've had to do this a few times myself and while it only takes five mins like people say, it does get a bit tedious to have to do it every time I reinstall.

I've done it about 6 times so far too, so that's 30mins of my life sat typing numbers into a phone to some bint.

How many computers do you have it installed on, 1 or more than 1? Why don't they just ask that at the very beginning and save us both the trouble!
 
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If you change bios or go from AHCI to IDE or vice-versa it usually triggers this as well but it literally takes about 2.5 mins from start to finish if you get the phonecall message.

I activated Vista the other day 3 times in less than 24 hours with a new SSD as I had to reinstall several times due to driver issues & it never once asked me to reactivate via phone so its very random!
 
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