Windows Validation [Kind of an odd question]

Cymril

No, this doesn't have anything to do with piracy!

I just plugged in two hard drives because I needed some pictures from them, but I had forgotten that I had reformatted them. So right now I'm running some recovery software to see if I can get them back, (getting the files back isn't critically important, nor is it the point of this thread).

Anyway, my question is this - Plugging in two extra IDE hard drives (and unplugging my IDE DVD-R) means I made three hardware changes, and triggered Window's validation. I was wondering if Windows, XP Pro if it's important, saves your old configuration when it detects a new one?

That is, when I unplug the two drives and set everything back, will I have to re-validate Windows again?

Granted, I'm going to find out the answer in a couple of hours once the recovery stuff is done, and it'll hardly be a problem if it does, I'm just curious and google has failed me.

Horus

Wow honestly this happens? I never had that happen to me and I own a Mac Pro which houses 4 drives that I upgraded.Call them up have all your information ready and they will reset it for you. happen to me was installing first time XP on drive that croaked after registering.... second time triggered the call us you pirater to verify.... takes 15mins.

Cymril

Yes it does, once you make three hardware changes you need to revalidate your Windows installation.

Never mind that someone who HAD a legal copy of windows would suddenly find themselves with an illegal copy of windows, maybe hardware piracy is on the rise?

But seriously, I think Windows takes a hardware hash to stop people from copying the validation file and giving it to someone else. Because no two PCs will ever have the same hash.

Also, it'll take even less then 15 minutes if I have to revalidate, Windows gives you 3 days before it locks you out, and I got this particular copy of XP through my university, which means I have all my product keys stored online. All I need to do is log in to Microsoft's Academic Software thing and copy/paste the key.

Like I said, just curious.

underdonk

Just had to do it myself. Called in to do it by phone and the process took less than 10 minutes. It was an automated system.

Cymril

Yeah, had to revalidate. But, it was a lot easier then I thought it was going to be, I just used the taskbar item to "Validate Windows" it connected and validated without me having to put in the product key, so only 1 click.