DRM Hell May 11, 2009, 12 :33 UTC (3 Talkback[s]) (5417 reads) (Other stories by David Lane)
"What Microsoft and others does to control their licenses is this -- they create a unique signature based on the activation key and ten or so hardware component IDs. Change a percentage of the hardware and you invalidate the key. Invalidate the key and...
"My laptop came back from repair on Thursday. The problem required them to replace the motherboard. While it was away, I got thinking that I really needed to increase the size of the hard drive. You can see where this is going right? Other than the RAM and the wireless NIC, every component of the PC has been swapped out, thus invalidating the key. And this is where my problems begin.
"It would seem that there are a number of programs that also use the Microsoft model, either generating their own key or tying themselves to the Microsoft key. In some cases, like Microsoft, it is a simple matter to regenerate and reverify your status with a quick trip to the web. Others do not make it so simple. I have spent two days uninstalling utilities and programs and reinstalling them and trying to get them to work correctly."
