Is Windows Licensing HDD, Person or Machine specificm

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I was wondering about this earlier. How does the licensing work? Technically the hdd is what holds the software, so is the license restricted to one hdd? Could I move my hdd around and in theory carry my windows license with me wherever I go and whichever motherboard I connect it to?
 
I do believe that on installation, the software checks things like the motherboard, hdd, graphics card etc so if you put the hdd in another machine & things dont match then it wont work.

Something like that I thik lol.
 
As I understand it you can buy an system builders license which ties it to one machine (motherboard dependent I think) but if your motherboard developed a fault and you had to replace it, you might be able to convince MS to transfer it over for you. I've personally used my cheapy student upgrade licenses for my builds but for my last build I couldn't as it was all windows 8 and I'm not touching that!

So basically, you can change your HDD, SSD, GPU, RAM (I think CPU) but not the motherboard. So to answer your question, probably not :S
 
License is to chipset (motherboard) I believe

By moving the hard disk, IF it successfully boots (drivers for different chipsets etc. etc.) then it will need to be reactivated. You can reactivate only a limited number of times.
 
A retail license can be transferred between machines. An OEM one cannot. Except I have an OEM version of Windows that I have transferred between completely different machine builds and Microsoft have authorised it. Nearly all laptops come with an OEM version of Windows by the way.
 
I think its a bit misleading to tie it to motherboard. I think MS havent cottoned on to the fact that the most valuable asset to any computer user is likely to be data and its the hdd (or more accurately, its contents) that stays with the user the longest. From a legal standpoint, I think it could be challenged as they are restricting the end user if they suffer multiple motherboard failures.
 
hsuffyan said:
I think its a bit misleading to tie it to motherboard. I think MS havent cottoned on to the fact that the most valuable asset to any computer user is likely to be data and its the hdd (or more accurately, its contents) that stays with the user the longest. From a legal standpoint, I think it could be challenged as they are restricting the end user if they suffer multiple motherboard failures.
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When dell engineers replace motherboards on laptops running Windows 8, they reactivate Windows with a new code :)
 
Same as when fitting a new motherboard to a HP or Compaq there are codes that have to written to the BIOS in order for windows to stay activated.
 
hsuffyan said:
I think its a bit misleading to tie it to motherboard. I think MS havent cottoned on to the fact that the most valuable asset to any computer user is likely to be data and its the hdd (or more accurately, its contents) that stays with the user the longest. From a legal standpoint, I think it could be challenged as they are restricting the end user if they suffer multiple motherboard failures.
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Oem is only *supposed* to be used by system vendors..
 
Mac address of the motherboard.

I've formatted various machines only to reuse the licence and it passes activation fine.

With a new mobo no, you have to do the automated phone call thing.
 
But surely with Win7 at least you're not even buying the OS software anyway as a Win7 ISO can be downloaded legally but will only run for 30 days after which you're only purchasing an activation code.
Unless you're planning on running a windows loader to get round this issue. And we wouldn't be doing that now, would we?
 
Mike-a said:
But surely with Win7 at least you're not even buying the OS software anyway as a Win7 ISO can be downloaded legally but will only run for 30 days after which you're only purchasing an activation code.
Unless you're planning on running a windows loader to get round this issue. And we wouldn't be doing that now, would we?
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You buy a licence to use the software. The same with any software.
 
You can technically move it around but it is very likely that you will have to re-activate it against the new hardware.
 
I was thinking more from a legal standpoint as to what the software and license is restricted to, which is different on operating systems than something like Lightroom, which is very much data/hdd centric.
 
hsuffyan said:
I was thinking more from a legal standpoint as to what the software and license is restricted to, which is different on operating systems than something like Lightroom, which is very much data/hdd centric.
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I think my post in post #5 is the most accurate (having looked into this a few times in the past when building machines. OEM ones go with the machine, retail ones go with the customer. Laptops come with OEM licenses. You can't move that from machine to machine when the laptop dies. If you purchase a separate retail copy, you can move that between machines (although only one may be active at any one time).
 
Carbonangel said:
Mac address of the motherboard.

I've formatted various machines only to reuse the licence and it passes activation fine.

With a new mobo no, you have to do the automated phone call thing.
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It's not really the MAC address of the motherboard but a digital signature that ties it to the motherboard's BIOS information.

For versions installed OEM by vendors (IBM, Dell, HP, Sony, etc), they use SLIC which allows them to activate standalone (without phoning home to MS) by linking it with a digital signature of the vendor.

So when you buy a laptop, the 25-alphanumeric product key printed on the COA is not the one that's been used to activate the laptop; they've used the signature version. That's also how they can have a laptop re-imaged and it's pre-activated (because the digitial signature, BIOS information and master product key all tie up).

As others have said, if you buy an OEM licence (normally when you buy a hard drive as that's a loop hole to qualify as a "system builder"), then it's tied to that particular machine which is why automatic activations don't work if you've changed motherboard although phoning MS can sometimes work around the problem.

I bought a retail version of W7 when it first came out and have used that on 3 different systems as I've upgraded over the years. Sometimes, on an upgrade I had to phone to activate, other times, it did it over the internet without complaining.

So with a retail licence, you could "move" your hard drive around, although it's not what the licence is really designed to allow you to do! If it's an OEM licence, then strictly speaking, no, because the licence is tied to the PC the OS is running on.
 
If your key is legit and you can't get it to activate, Ring MS and do it through their automated system. It will Re-arm the key, regardless of where its from. Done this hundreds of times, Brother works at MS, and their system will re-arm any legit key, obviously some keys are flagged if they are activated a huge number of times, but 10/15 times is fine.
 
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