Will adding RAM to re-purposed PCs trigger activation again?

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We have our ancient PCs running very stably with Windows 7 Ultimate x64 as backup storage servers and we’ve also upgraded their NICs to run at 2.5GbE.

Both still have only 4GB of DRAM:  one uses DDR and the other uses DDR2.

Is there a way to check, in advance of adding RAM, whether Windows will require re-activation after total RAM is increased from 4GB to 8GB?

We activated these Win7 OEM versions using the telephone sequence which requires entry of a series of long integers.

I don’t have any idea what to expect.

Many thanks, in advance for any help you can offer with this one issue.

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Providing the machines were activated legitimately, no re-activation will be needed.

Only a change of motherboard is likely to trigger activation issues. Common hardware changes/upgrades, like memory, drives and graphics cards should be allowed.

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BobbyB, SupremeLaW

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Do you happen to know if Microsoft has published a small utility which answers that question “officially” BEFORE actually adding RAM e.g. as in a “dry run”?

 

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Yes, we carefully followed the required sequence for activating an OEM copy of Windows 7 Ultimate x64.

See:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/will-upgrading-my-ram-force-me-to-re-activate/6114e3f0-66b9-412e-8ca6-7fc35161c171

2 answers:

“Upgrading RAM does not trigger the need to re-activate Windows 7.”

-and-

“No it should not. RAM is not part of the product activation system.”

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Never seen a tool that ‘pre-checked’.  I just know from years of seeing machines that RAM is not by itself enough to trigger reactivation.

Typically it kicks a reactivation with an entire motherboard change – or – moving a computer to virtual (which is the digital equivalent of a motherboard change)

Susan Bradley Patch Lady/Prudent patcher

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BobbyB, SupremeLaW

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Something I did on one of our backup storage servers triggered “re-activation” recently, but I neglected to record it in our private system log,  and now I can’t remember which PC was triggered.

We have had a few rare problems with AVG Internet Security — if I don’t EXIT from a full file scan of C: immediately after it finishes, leaving it in that state corrupts C: somewhere.

Thinking back, I believe it was AVG Internet Security installed on a PC still running Windows XP 32-bit:  we keep XP running on that PC because HP never released any Windows 7 or 10 device drivers for our HP scanner.

I fixed the “re-activation” message by restoring a drive image.

Thanks for your prompt and expert reply!

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XP was the only system that could trigger reactivation for a RAM swap. Back then, 10 categories were checked; things like CPU, RAM, MAC address, volume serial number, etc.; and 7 of the 10 had to pass or it required reactivation. Nowadays (since Vista I’d say), it’s pretty much just the motherboard.

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SupremeLaW

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steeviebops wrote:

XP was the only system that could trigger reactivation for a RAM swap. Back then, 10 categories were checked; things like CPU, RAM, MAC address, volume serial number, etc.; and 7 of the 10 had to pass or it required reactivation. Nowadays (since Vista I’d say), it’s pretty much just the motherboard.

The chance of a RAM swap triggering reactivation on XP are somewhat small steeviebops (assuming it was a “retail” non-OEM version of XP). I never encountered something like this on OEM WinXP Home for just a RAM chip swap.

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SupremeLaW

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My original question was about increasing RAM from 4GB to 8GB, not merely “swapping” (replacing) existing 4GB with newer 4GB, i.e. without increasing the total.

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EP wrote:

steeviebops wrote:

XP was the only system that could trigger reactivation for a RAM swap. Back then, 10 categories were checked; things like CPU, RAM, MAC address, volume serial number, etc.; and 7 of the 10 had to pass or it required reactivation. Nowadays (since Vista I’d say), it’s pretty much just the motherboard.

The chance of a RAM swap triggering reactivation on XP are somewhat small steeviebops (assuming it was a “retail” non-OEM version of XP). I never encountered something like this on OEM WinXP Home for just a RAM chip swap.

Pre-installed OEM (SLP 1.0) versions were different altogether. They were tied to a text string in the DMI information of the BIOS. In that case, only a motherboard swap with one of a completely different vendor would trigger reactivation. So it was similar behaviour to later versions.

I only ever used non-SLP versions which used the “7 of 10 checks” as I mentioned above. In this case, a RAM swap alone wouldn’t trigger reactivation, but if three other changes were made beforehand then it could.

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Microfix, SupremeLaW

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It would be preferable for us to increase RAM in both PCs from 4GB to 8GB, in part because used DDR2 is very inexpensive now at on-line retailers like eBay.

And, if the ONLY WAY to do the latter required us to RE-ACTIVATE Windows 7 Ultimate, using the long string of long integers that we already entered to ACTIVATE the first time, I’m willing to do so.

HOWEVER, now that Windows 7 is no longer supported, what can happen is some kind of ABORT that happens while attempting to follow the latter sequence via telephone.

And, if that ABORT requires us to contact MS, what then?  Is MS going to reply by saying they don’t support Windows 7 any longer?

Given all the uncertainty, it might be simpler, and more effective, to leave both PCs at 4GB.

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p.s.  And, for readers here who may have missed this point, we tried a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro x64, from an OEM disc, but the install aborted with the error message:

this CPU does not support “PrefetchW”

So, Windows 7 Ultimate did install AOK from another OEM disc that we purchased from Newegg several years ago.

The latter OS software is “genuine”;  it just needed a separate activation code, which we purchased from an eBay re-seller.

Many thanks to everyone who has helped with this topic.

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SupremeLaW wrote:

And, if that ABORT requires us to contact MS, what then? Is MS going to reply by saying they don’t support Windows 7 any longer?

coincidence, just done that a few weeks back on a Win7 Home Premium and activated over the MSFT activation phone call without issue, once activated use Advanced Tokens Manager for reintroduction when/ if required later.

Windows - commercial by definition and now function...

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SupremeLaW

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I’ve been adding/updating the RAM in my PC’s, both Desktop & Laptop, since way back when I was still using WinXP and not once have I ever needed to reactivate the installed Windows (both OEM & Retail versions of WinXP, Win7 & Win10) on the various PC’s I’ve owned over the years.

In fact, one of those upgrades was increasing the RAM in my Dell D830 from the original 4GB (which was the max it could use when it was first manufactured) to 8GB after Dell issued a BIOS updated that supported more than 4GB. That upgrade required both a BIOS update and adding more RAM but still didn’t require reactivating the installed WinXP OEM!

The only time I’ve had to reactivate Windows was when I moved an “existing” Windows installation from an old PC I was going to retired onto a new one.

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Steve, Microfix, SueW, geekdom, SupremeLaW, satrow

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If you get stuck with activation problems on a legit system, you can always do what MS support techs do.

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/microsoft-support-cracks-windows-for-customer-after-activation-fails/

I recently had a mobo die and this worked fine to reactivate the system with a digital license.  Same hard drive – same copy of Windows 10, but with a new mobo it needed activation.

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SupremeLaW

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georgea wrote:

If you get stuck with activation problems on a legit system, you can always do what MS support techs do.

Agree. MS support uses this to fix the their own issues. It works from my experience as well.

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SupremeLaW

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SupremeLaW wrote:

p.s.  And, for readers here who may have missed this point, we tried a fresh install of Windows 10 Pro x64, from an OEM disc, but the install aborted with the error message:

this CPU does not support “PrefetchW”

So, Windows 7 Ultimate did install AOK from another OEM disc that we purchased from Newegg several years ago.

The latter OS software is “genuine”;  it just needed a separate activation code, which we purchased from an eBay re-seller.

Many thanks to everyone who has helped with this topic.

Yep, this was introduced in Windows 8.1 as a minimum CPU requirement. It only applies to th x64 editions.

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SupremeLaW

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