[]
| License Model. The software is licensed on a per copy per computer
| basis. A computer is a physical hardware system with an internal storage
| device capable of running the software. A hardware partition or blade is
| considered to be a separate computer.
| /qp
|
| Doesn't appear that a mobo, processor, ram, case or screw meet the above.
|

That's an interesting clarification. As I recall, when
Product Activation was originally instituted, MS said
the motherboard was the official licensee. The WinME
packaging said the software was licensed both to the
person and the hardware. Which raises interesting questions:
[]
ISTR - I think well before 7 - there being some sort of weighting: hard
disc was so many points, changing the amount of RAM so many, and so on,
and there being some sort of decaying threshold: if you changed enough
to go above a certain number of points within a certain time, it
required (re-)activation. A motherboard didn't _automatically_ cause
re-activation to be required, but since it contains so many
points-scoring items - ethernet port, sound, and so on - it usually did.

I think _that_'s probably where the 120 days comes from: the idea was to
let you upgrade (or replace broken bits of) your computer, but if you
appeared to have replaced too much of it within a certain time, it
triggered a re-ac. Presumably you could replace a third of it in 40 days
or something like that, and allowing the whole computer in a third of
the year was a good compromise between allowing upgrades and stopping
piracy: the pirates were only going to be able to do at most 3 computers
a year.

But what do I know.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

All humanity is divided into three classes: those who are immovable, those who
are movable, and those who move! - Benjamin Franklin