What hardware changes deactivate Vista?

[balane]

I did a quick search with no luck. Can somebody quickly tell me what hardware changes will require Vista to be reactivated?

I just changed my motherboard and obiously I had to with that.

Will I have to activate it again with a new CPU? Video Card? Adding RAM?

Thanks.

 

[Aluvus]

Motherboard.

 

[balane]

Wow, that's it? (Well, I guess a new hard drive obviously.) That's cool then. I was going to wait and do a few things at once if I had to reactivate but I'll go ahead and order my CPU now.

 

[mechBgon]

Here's another suggestion: if you're going to change out several things, don't change them all out in one shot. For example, if you're going to add another 2GB of RAM, a new video card and a new DVD burner, then do one new goodie per reboot.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Here's another suggestion: if you're going to change out several things, don't change them all out in one shot. For example, if you're going to add another 2GB of RAM, a new video card and a new DVD burner, then do one new goodie per reboot.

mechBgon, why do you suggest this?

I don't know exactly how Vista handles this, but, in the case of XP, spreading out changes wouldn't help much. XP kept an internal rolling count of changes over the previous 120 days. If you exceeded the "points limit" of changes, you were required to re-activate.

Occasionally, this meant that even a "minor change" could trigger re-activation because other changes had also been made in the previous 120 days.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: mechBgon
Here's another suggestion: if you're going to change out several things, don't change them all out in one shot. For example, if you're going to add another 2GB of RAM, a new video card and a new DVD burner, then do one new goodie per reboot.

I don't know exactly how Vista handles this, but, in the case of XP, rebooting wouldn't be the solution. XP kept an internal rolling count of changes over the previous 120 days. If you exceeded the "points limit", you were required to re-activate.

Occasionally, this meant that even a "minor change" could trigger re-activation because other changes had also been made in the previous 120 days.

The reason I mention doing things in stages is that I recall reading that advice at Microsoft's site some time ago, particularly for OEM Vista.