said by CylonRed:Starting with Win7? That was how it was supposed to be as well for XP yet folks had no real issues when needing it reactivated for motherboard, hard drive or rebuilds (including myself). So MS is truly locking it down with Win7?
I had to reactivate by phone as well after my desktop's motherboard failed. When they replaced the MB in my laptop they were able to transfer the MB's serial number to the new board and it worked fine.