Correct. They won't if you tell them the TRUTH (that you have changed the motherboard with a different one). Or at least the above has happened twice to my friends, maybe they were not smart enough, or the MS guys on the other side of the phone were the wrong ones? jaclaz Not always... I recently put in a new mainboard and had to go through the telephone process. After explaining that I just installed a new mainboard, they gave me a new activation code without futher questions...