Forced to re-activate XP after partition format. Is it normal?

[AnyMal]

Last night I converted my system partition fromk FAT32 to NTFS and immediately after reboot and Windows Genuine Advantage popped up telling me I need to activate my XP due to "major hardware change". Is this normal considering I DID NOT install/replace any hardware?

 

[Navid]

I do not have an answer for you.

But, I know that one of the parameters XP monitors in order to decide if too much has changed or not is the volume ID of the partition XP is installed on. This parameter has 1 vote.
Amount of memory, CPU type, master optical drive, graphics card each have 1 vote also. There are some other parameters that each have 1 vote. MAC ID has 3 votes. The threshold is breached if you have less than 7 votes and reactivation will be required.

I do not know if the volume ID is changed automatically when you convert from FAT to NTFS!

Edit:
You can download and run xpinfo to see what components have changed since activation.
http://www.licenturion.com/xp/
If you have an image of your OS before the conversion, you can restore and run xpinfo on it to see if you were at the boundary and the volume ID change triggered it.

 

[bsobel]

Originally posted by: AnyMal
Last night I converted my system partition fromk FAT32 to NTFS and immediately after reboot and Windows Genuine Advantage popped up telling me I need to activate my XP due to "major hardware change". Is this normal considering I DID NOT install/replace any hardware?

Id almost view that as a quasi-bug, but as Navid posted the volume ID is one vote. I presume at some point in the past you changed other hardware and this 'vote' finally pushed you over the threshhold. Ideally running an MS tool to convert partitions wouldn't cause this, but, well it's MS... 🙂

 

[AnyMal]

Originally posted by: bsobel

Originally posted by: AnyMal
Last night I converted my system partition fromk FAT32 to NTFS and immediately after reboot and Windows Genuine Advantage popped up telling me I need to activate my XP due to "major hardware change". Is this normal considering I DID NOT install/replace any hardware?

Id almost view that as a quasi-bug, but as Navid posted the volume ID is one vote. I presume at some point in the past you changed other hardware and this 'vote' finally pushed you over the threshhold. Ideally running an MS tool to convert partitions wouldn't cause this, but, well it's MS... 🙂

I actually swapped out a mobo about a month agop and had to re-activate it, but I havn't made any changes to the hardware since.

 

[AnyMal]

Originally posted by: Navid
I do not have an answer for you.

But, I know that one of the parameters XP monitors in order to decide if too much has changed or not is the volume ID of the partition XP is installed on. This parameter has 1 vote.
Amount of memory, CPU type, master optical drive, graphics card each have 1 vote also. There are some other parameters that each have 1 vote. MAC ID has 3 votes. The threshold is breached if you have less than 7 votes and reactivation will be required.

I do not know if the volume ID is changed automatically when you convert from FAT to NTFS!

Edit:
You can download and run xpinfo to see what components have changed since activation.
http://www.licenturion.com/xp/
If you have an image of your OS before the conversion, you can restore and run xpinfo on it to see if you were at the boundary and the volume ID change triggered it.

Thanks for good info! I will look into it when I get home tonight.