New hard drive, will it activate?

manic_man · 11 Jul 2010 at 17:58

Hi all,

I'm going to be buying a new main system drive at some point soon. My current x64 Windows 7 license is an educational MSDN one, so effectively the same as OEM.

I am wondering, if I change my hard drive, but everything else remains the same, will this cause an activation failure where i will have to ring India and grovel for them to take pity on me? Or will it still be ok?

I'm a little fuzzy as to what MS denote as being enough of a hardware change for it to make a difference.

Thanks

blaineoliver · 11 Jul 2010 at 18:09

Just do it, if there are problems, phone them up, say your replacing a broken hard drive, and it will be activated.

Raumarik · 11 Jul 2010 at 18:10

It'll be fine, new HDD shouldn't affect activation.

I've done it a few times, granted I have retail licenses but can't see the activation process being any different or less reliable due to OEM.

manic_man · 11 Jul 2010 at 18:13

Ok great, thanks guys

Aod · 12 Jul 2010 at 12:19

HDD's will not cause problems with reactivation.

Aaaaanyway, MSDNAA licenses can be transferred from system to system for as long as you're a student

SiriusB · 12 Jul 2010 at 14:41

manic_man said:
I'm a little fuzzy as to what MS denote as being enough of a hardware change for it to make a difference.

Thanks

With OEM it is usually the motherboard changing that will trigger re-activation since it is the board that it is attached to. [MS sees a new motherboard as being a new computer].

Minor changes such as HDD, RAM etc usually wont trigger it. Though what arcane magic MS uses to determine these things is shrouded in mystery!

Aod · 12 Jul 2010 at 15:42

SiriusB said:
With OEM it is usually the motherboard changing that will trigger re-activation since it is the board that it is attached to. [MS sees a new motherboard as being a new computer].

Minor changes such as HDD, RAM etc usually wont trigger it. Though what arcane magic MS uses to determine these things is shrouded in mystery!

afaik, every hardware change is assigned a "points value" and when this is exceeded between boots windows will throw a wobbly.

so, if you changed four hard drives, a graphics card and a soundcard all in one go, windows'd have a fit, but if you did them one after the other it'd probably be fine