Does hardware upgrade void my license?

[wtm0325]

greetings!

if i wan to upgrade ram n hard disk for my old laptop, does this void my windows activation or license?

[Zxian]

Hi there,

Your license is for you to use. As long as you have that copy of Windows installed on only one computer, then you are fine.

When you go to activate Windows on the new hard drive (since you can't have two hard drives on a laptop), you'll probably get a message that your copy of windows has already been activated. You'll need to call Microsoft to explain your situation to them. They'll give you all the info that you need to finish everything off.

As for RAM, I've upgraded RAM a lot of times (on desktops and laptops) and never had any problems with activation.

Hope this helps!

[Girkers]

When you bought your laptop, no doubt you would have got an "OEM" licence of Windows. What this means is that the version of Windows is licenced for the machine you bought it with. I.E. you can't install it on a desktop or another computer as it was bought for you laptop.

Now as you said you are merely upgrading your laptop and this is fine as Zxian has said. It will ask you to activate and if it has been some time since you did your original activation it may not ask you to call MS, it may just work.

(Sorry for the long winded reply, just like to keep people in the loop)

[puntoMX]

You also can call M$. If you want to re-use your licence for a better computer, while for example the old one died. You need to explain them that your computer was un-repairable defect and they will give you a new activation.

But in this case, it’s not a problem, the activation is only checking a checksum from the BIOS of your system, so don’t worry about that.

PS. I don´t know if this is also for Malaysia, but in Europe and the USA it´s posible.

[Flashman]

I can only speak for the notebooks my company makes, but we are one of the biggest manufacturers in the world (if not the biggest); and our version of XP on our older machines does not require activation. The disks provided with our computers contained an image, and XP was already activated.

However, our current models all come with the first disk being an OEM copy of XP that installs the same as a retail copy; and then several additional disks that install all the drivers and added software unattended. You still must activate XP with 30 days, the same as a retail copy. And such, you can make a couple of changes without having to re-activate; just like a retail version. However, unless you have one of the rare units where this new hard drive is going into a bay as a second drive instead of replacing the current drive; if you replace the drive then you are going to have to reinstall XP.

So once you reinstall it, will you have to activate it? The answer to that basically is, did you have to activate XP originally?

If you did, don't worry, you are allowed to re-activate and/or re-install XP on the same machine; it will probably all be automatic over the internet without the need to speak to Microsoft. The activation is there simply so they can spot one serial number being used over and over, and then invalidate that serial number. Re-using it every once and a while due to re-installs and/or upgrades is normal and won't cause any issues.