Solved 3 day activation extension possible for swapped machines?

[dianedebuda]

Looking for fall-back procedure; not a "real" problem right now. I have 2 Asus laptops with the same motherboard, #1 was preinstalled with Win7 Home, #2 was preinstalled with Win8. I have clean-installed Win7 Pro on #2 & activated it. If #1 gets sick and needs to be sent for repair, I'd like to be able to move the #1 drive to laptop #2 and use it until #1 laptop returns. Then I'd return the #1 drive back to its home and resume using #2 laptop with its Win8 or Win7 Pro. As a test, I moved the #1 drive to #2 and all seems well except that there's a 3 days to auto-activation. That's probably not enough time for a repair, so my questions are: 1) is there a way to extend the 3 day to something like 7 or 30? 2) what happens if the auto-activation happens with the #1 drive in laptop #2? Will I be able to reactivate #1 when the repair is done? I'm assuming none of this will any affect on my legal, activated Win8 and Win7 Pro on #2.

 

[NoelDP]

You want to be VERY careful trying something like that.
OEM licenses are locked to the first motherboard they activate on - and cannot normally be moved. (MS appears to be enforcing this again now, after a few years fairly lax control)

With Windows 7, once you go out of grace period, the penalties are relatively minor - mostly consisting of black background and the on-screen notification.

The best thing to do is to ensure that you are still using the OEM_SLP Key (run MGADiag to check) with which it came pre-installed and just let it go out of grace, and do NOT attempt anything fancy in terms of activating or attempting bypass activation.

So long as it's no more than 30 days, even MSE will continue working - after that, it will shut down (with warnings)

Once it's back in the proper machine, you may need to simply validate at www.microsoft.com/genuine/validate or (at worst) apply the COA Key, to get back to a genuine status.

If the COA Key is in place already for whatever reason, then so long as you don't allow the system to activate, you should be OK (but if the motherboard has been replaced then all bets are off, although it should be a case of using telephone activation rather than anything else).

 

[dianedebuda]

#1 is a preinstalled Win7 Home and comes up as Activated on first use. Really just trying to find a good plan of attack if #1 gets sick because it's a "work", desktop-replacement machine. Caused a real problem when the last laptop in this role got ill - and that was just on XP.

Maybe I should test by restoring a #1 backup onto #2 and waiting 4 days & see what happens - with web access off, of course. Can't see the temp replacement really lasting more than a week; either it's going to be something simple or the mb is going to have to be replaced with a duplicate. In the later case, I would expect that a phone call should take care of the activation since the "new" mb is a "repair"... At least I hope so.

 

[NoelDP]

I don't know what Asus are like in terns of repairs - but when I had to send an Acer back to Dixons for repair, they sent it to Germany, and it came back with the wrong problem fixed, and the wrong OS on it - it was 8 weeks in all, and I ended up with a refund/replacement rather than the original machine.

 

[dianedebuda]

Why should it be easy when it can be hard?

 

[dianedebuda]

Just had a thought; would this work? If I did an Anytime upgrade on #1 Home to Pro, could I restore the #1 drive to laptop #2 and change the Activation key to the #2 Pro's license? Then, when #1 was fixed/replaced, return the #1 disk to laptop #1 and restore #1's Activation key? Of course, if #1's mb was replaced, it'd be a phone call like before.

Another alternative would be to put Home on #2 instead of Pro (it's not activated yet); possible to do the same license swapping then? I put Pro on #2 only because I had already purchased a copy. Not on a domain; having Group Policy Editor & Remote Console would be nice, but not essential.

Edit: I know it sounds strange, but I'd purchased a couple of Anytime upgrades and Win7 Pros when they were on sale at NewEgg a year or so ago & haven't yet used them. Actually have plans now, but this laptop licensing thing has me reconsidering.

 

[NoelDP]

No - that would be OK on the way out, but when the upgraded system went back to the original one, you'd be unable to input the Upgrade key (unless it was a Full license, rather than an Upgrade)

As I say, you'd be best just living with the non-genuine problem rather than messing about with reactivations - unless all Keys involved are Retail ones.

 

[dianedebuda]

Maybe I'm being dense, but since it says "auto activation in 3 days", it doesn't sound like I'll have a chance to be "non-genuine" unless there's a way to turn off the "auto". I'm assuming "auto activation" means either I'll be forced to buy a Home license at full price from Microsoft or that I'll have to attempt to transfer the #1 license to #2 as a "repaired motherboard" via phone call. Neither option is desireable since using laptop #2 is only meant as a short term, "quickie" solution.

So buying an OEM Home license for #2 and using that on the (preinstalled Home) #1 drive while it was in laptop #2 wouldn't work? I thought that would have the best shot at being as close as I could get to staying "legal" and being able to do an "instant recovery". Isn't there ANY way to make use of redundant hardware to deal with hardware failure?

 

[NoelDP]

If you leave the OEM_SLP Key there, then it cannot be activated by normal means and so is safe
That's why I'm a little wary of trying it if the COA_SLP Key is in use.

When activation fails, the system drops into a non-genuine state but pretty much continues to work as normal (apart from the nag, and the black background)


Basically, you need to use good backup procedures more than anything else , for disaster recovery - there's always the chance that it's the hard drive that will go rather than the motherboard (in fact it's much more likely, in a laptop!)

 

[dianedebuda]

I agree backup is essential, but with a hard disk or SSD failure, you can just restore the last backup & you're ready to go. Motherboard failure is another story and sadly, with laptops, I've had a couple of motherboard failures but no HD problems. So I'm trying to plan ahead as much as possible while I'm building these systems now, particularly since I'm the user of laptop #2 but not #1; I just get the headaches if it fails. And it's always at a critical time when I don't have the time to rebuild a system. <g>

I do appreciate your hand-holding.

 

[NoelDP]

Check out using the Windows Easy Transfer system for moving data across (perhaps to a prepared image on a fresh disk?)
It will move most data and settings across - but you'll have to reinstall programs.

 

[dianedebuda]

Good thought. Heard about it, but had not looked in to it. If nothing else, it'd be good to check out what MS deems as valuable while I'm planning my non-system backups and moving "stuff" from the old XP systems. Did a quick Google, but didn't find a detail list of what's available to be moved. Know of any?

 

[NoelDP]

Nah - I prefer to pull stuff across from the old install, as it means that I can update the filing system in the process.

I'll ask around - somebody will get back to you.

In the meantime, this may help... http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11470-windows-easy-transfer-transfer-computers.html

 

[dianedebuda]

I'm pretty much a manual-type too, but it's always good to double check that I'm not missing anything.

Many thanks.

 

[gregrocker]

I also prefer manually transferring files by dragging the active User folders, avoiding problems with WET.

In your case I would simply drag my User folders and any critical settings I need (google how to do this) for mail, Office, etc. over to the Home Premium machine and then ship the Pro machine for service. It needs to have it's original hardware for servicing anyway.

You can already have your latest file set living in the cloud using a process similar to Sync, Backup and Store your Files to the Cloud with Skydrive - Windows 7 Forums

 

[dianedebuda]

For the most part, I avoid the standard "user" areas for data as they have been oft-reported as hacker targets. But I know there's some "stuff/settings" that can't be avoided. Mostly I've been lucky only to deal with single-user systems, so it's not that big of a deal. I'm quite familiar with locations for the Mail stores, Favorites, and Start Menu type stuff. But I think I'm going to have to multi-user laptop #2 so it's easier to help the "owner" of laptop #1 if she gets herself into trouble. And I'm not a fan of "Cloud" anything.

 

[NoelDP]

And I'm not a fan of "Cloud" anything.

That makes at least two of us then

I have to admit that I find SkyDrive useful - but only in a very limited sense.

There is no way that I'd rely on net access for my personal data files - especially as for most of today, my connection has been dropping at least every minute!
(I started a 100MB upload to my SkyDrive at 9a.m. - it's still going, and I have no idea when/if it'll finish.

[edit] - I just checked, and it has finally finished! [/edit]

 

[dianedebuda]

Reminds me too much of my mainframe days with remote terminals -- quite locked down. My experience with computers pre-dates the first IBM PC by several years...

 

[NoelDP]

Ticker-tape terminals for me

 

[gregrocker]

I use Skydrive to sync my PC's across the room and across the country. It's never missed a beat in a year's trial period. I even keep a complete archive of all versions of every file by having SyncToys backup up all of the changes twice a week to a Skydrive backup folder. It's my own personal server.

I like Skydrive a lot better than Win8 because they got it right.