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Last Login: 5/7/2008 7:39:28 AM
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| | I am planning to rebuild my laptop (it's been a year, time to clean house so to speak). I've also ordered a new hard drive (7200rpm) in hopes of getting a little higher performance. Before I rebuild, is there a way to "un-activate" or "un-register" the copy of Ultimate that is currently loaded so I can re-activate it after it has been rebuilt? I ran into something similar when I loaded it originally on a test machine before loading it on my laptop. Had to get on the phone with One-Care ($50) so they could "unregister" it. I'm hoping that there is a way to do this without having to call One-Care again. Thanks in advance! Matt |
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| Before I rebuild, is there a way to "un-activate" or "un-register" the copy of Ultimate that is currently loaded so I can re-activate it after it has been rebuilt?
There's no way to unactivate or unregister. If you have a retail version, you may be able to reactivate without calling MS. If you have an OEM version, you will have to call MS.
If you want to retain your settings (accounts, favorites, emails, etc), you should look into using Windows Easy Transfer Companion to save off that stuff to an external drive, and then reload it after your new installation is done.
ASUS A832nSLI-Deluxe, AMD 64X2 4400 OC 2.4GHz, 3GB OCZ,
Running: XP Pro, Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Vista Business, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
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| | That's what I was afraid of. I guess I'll have to rebuild it with WHS re-image. Thanks for your assistance! Matt |
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| Unless you have BIOS-embedded activation, which only come on certain preloaded machines, changing the hard drive, even if you reload from a full OS image, might still force reactivation because the serial number of the hard drive where Vista is first installed is part of the activation hash code. Thus, some time after you reinstall, Vista will re-check your hash code and might very well deactivate your machine. Just warning you in advance.
ASUS A832nSLI-Deluxe, AMD 64X2 4400 OC 2.4GHz, 3GB OCZ,
Running: XP Pro, Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Vista Business, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
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| | I completed the rebuild with the new hard drive using Windows Home Server restore. Worked out very nicely, even let me reconfigure the hard drive size to use the larger drive. After it completed, I went under My Computer, Properties. It said "2 days until activation", so I clicked "Activate Now". It activated without issues. So it would appear that the activation key is either not linked to the hard drive or it is only compiled upon installation using the hard drive serial. Thanks! Matt |
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| Not familiar with WHS restore, but I do know that in the past, the SN of the original OS hard drive was encoded into the hash sequence sent to MS to activate the OS.
There were claims that you could reactivate a retail version once without calling MS. IS yours a retail copy?
MS had previously set up OEM licenses to prohibit more than one activation. Perhaps they have changed this -- it's not like they would tell me.
ASUS A832nSLI-Deluxe, AMD 64X2 4400 OC 2.4GHz, 3GB OCZ,
Running: XP Pro, Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Vista Business, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
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| | This particular version of Vista Ultimate is OEM. |
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| OK, just so I understand, you used WHS restore to clone an existing OEM version of Vista Ultimate to a new hard drive -- and it reactivated online without problems?
WOW!
Maybe MS has done something in WHS backup/restore that has removed the historical impediments to reactivation. That makes WHS much more attractive (IMHO).
ASUS A832nSLI-Deluxe, AMD 64X2 4400 OC 2.4GHz, 3GB OCZ,
Running: XP Pro, Vista Ultimate 32-bit, Vista Business, Ubuntu 7.10, Ubuntu 8.04 LTS
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Last Login: 6/19/2008 9:01:38 PM
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| Ya I had a vista Premium version and every time I did anything with it I had to call but i have Ultimate and just did a mobo change from an AMD to Intel and did not have to call. I guess I didn't trip the right switch.
sandman -Centurian Case-Asus M2NSLI Deluxe-5000+ Black 3gig OC-Zalman HSF- 2 SE WD YS 160 gig HD's- Video HD2600XT- Antec 550 Modular PS- Samsung 203B Optical Drive |
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