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I’m about to upgrade my machine (cpu/mobo/etc, but keep the hard drives) and think I most definitely need to reactivate Windows. Can anyone share his painful/painless experience?
@http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008/en/us/r2-product-activation.aspx wrote:
If you overhaul your server by replacing a substantial number of hardware components, it may appear to be different. You may have to reactivate Windows Server 2008 R2 within three days in order to continue to log on and avoid persistent activation notifications.
IMPORTANT NOTE: The software activation status does not impact the services running on the server. Even if the hardware goes out of tolerance and you are asked to reactivate it, services will continue to run, even if the software is not reactivated. Not activating will generate persistent notifications reminding you to activate the server. Services and remote administration are not affected.
If you are asked to reactivate the software, you may be able to re-activate over the internet. If activating over the internet fails, you can call the telephone number displayed on the activation screen to reactivate the software.I have used the telephone activation to re-activate Windows Server 2008 over the phone several times even after the MAK activation limit exceeded. As a tip if you decide to activate over the phone when you get to the automated part use your telephone keypad and not your voice. I find the system is still a bit dumb at recognizing and you’ll end up repeating a group of digits over and over. Make life simpler on yourself and use your telephone keypad!
Now as far as keeping your existing hard drives, do you plan to keep your current OS installed or are you going to install a fresh copy of Windows and reactivate using the same key? Upgrading the cpu + mobo while keeping the same OS can be troublesome and is not a guarantee. If you have an OEM copy, it is impossible to transfer the same HDD to a new chassis/mobo. However if you have a custom built machine that is not bound to this restriction you can use the same OS on an completely new mobo however just be aware that when you boot Windows for the first time everything will not be functioning at first. The reason is because your current OS is expecting to load the drivers from the old motherboard and thus will not be in full working order until you boot it up. Once you boot into Windows it should locate and install the chipset drivers, CD/DVD ROM drivers, network, VGA, etc. Once you have internet access you can try activating over the internet or use the phone method.
@imess wrote:
What’s the activation limit for the image downloaded from dreamspark?
It’s a single use key but i’ve gotten it to work over the internet twice before i had to activate by phone.
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