Thanks everybody for answering. Some very interesting aspects. And it is good to know that I was not the only one where it happened. I knew there was no need to panic although I had left my OEM installation CD in Germany whilst I took the CD belonging to my German desktop back to Florida. Speak about a confused specimen.
I will not even pretend to know why you needed to re-activate.
I can say, I have went as far back as 8 weeks without issue. But I have never tried to restore a image that far back either.
Perhaps its a combination of WAT and the length of time?
Hi Wishmaster, if you are right and it has to do with the age of the restore point, then one of our nice imaging theories will have a flaw. Remember we advocate to take an early image as backup and rather use that for a reinstall than to reinstll from the installation disc or the recovery partition. But if the WAT always throws a monkey wrench into that, it would be a bit frustrating.
wds7,
There is a possibility, albeit small, that Windows own imaging may have been more tolerant to the activation issue. The dismissive comment made was interpreted by me as a personal swipe - had no effect.
I have a couple more ideas on this.
1) Did you update the bios between creating the image and restoring it? We all know the validation process ids multiple things but its hazy so this could be a factor.
2) I've read many accounts of Acronis images throwing up non-genuine. On theory is maybe the program creates a new SID for every clone.
Again, all this applies to a retail setup only. Theres no way a royalty oem image could become non-genuine.
It's cool man ...wds7,
There is a possibility, albeit small, that Windows own imaging may have been more tolerant to the activation issue. The dismissive comment made was interpreted by me as a personal swipe - had no effect.
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