How does activation work?
You can complete activation on the Internet or by contacting Customer Care by telephone or e-mail. During activation, a unique identification code is created that represents your individual product key and the hardware configuration of your computer at the time of activation. The identification code does not include any personal information or information about software or data that resides on your computer, or the specific make or model of your computer.
Many of the components inside any computer have unique serial numbers that are routinely read by the operating system. The Windows Setup Wizard collects data about the hardware components of your computer as it installs drivers for the hardware you have installed in your system. It then creates an individually identifiable activation ID that it applies to your computer. When you activate Windows XP, Windows sends your activation ID to Microsoft’s databank, where the information is stored, and Microsoft’s activation server “unlocks” (activates) your copy of Windows. (If your computer isn’t on the Internet, you need to call Microsoft on the phone to send your activation ID.) Each time you reinstall Windows XP, you must reactivate it, and Microsoft checks that the activation ID hasn’t changed. Product activation does not limit the number of times you can reinstall Windows XP on a single machine. You can’t install the same copy of Windows XP on several different computers, because they hav
Today’s activation schemes work by creating a unique value or ID for each user, based on the user’s hardware configuration and the product serial number, though this is implemented differently by different vendors. Microsoft, for example, sends a single combined value, while Macrovision, maker of the popular DRM product SafeCast, sends two separate values: the serial number and a number representing the hardware. The user information is transmitted via the Internet (or telephone) to a vendor’s activation server, which receives the value, records it in a database, and sends back a unique activation code that unlocks the user’s product. Depending on the vendor’s implementation, unique hard drive or Registry identifiers are stored on users’ machines. There is no way around this, since the key to the process relies on checking user licenses locally each time the application runs. Macrovision’s SafeCast stores the values in several areas to make cloning more difficult and to protect legitim
