A young Bill Gates once complained about the copying of his company's Altair Basic software by computer hobbyists. This rampant theft, according to Gates, made all the hard work done by him and his company worth less than two dollars an hour. Decades later, Gates' company -- Microsoft -- instituted product activation and validity checking procedures that made the copying and sharing of its operating system and application software much more difficult for casual copiers and profiteering pirates.
How Activation Works
Windows activation is part of Microsoft's "Windows Product Activation" process. Activation differs from the installation process that requires a product code. It is also different from post-installation registration. Instead, the goal of Windows activation is to establish a link between a licensed copy Windows and a specific computer system. Creating such a link in theory should prevent the same copy of Windows from being installed on more than one machine, as was possible with earlier versions of the operating system.
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Following installation, Windows takes information from your video display adapter, SCSI and IDE drive adapters, processor type and serial number, hard drive serial number and your network adapter Media Access Control address to form a unique identity for your computer. No two computers should have the same hardware signature. When you try to install the same copy of Windows on more than one machine and then try to activate online or by phone, the activation will fail.
Windows XP
Windows XP was the first Windows operating system to require activation. According to an official 2007 document on the Microsoft's support website, "After the 30 days has expired, you must activate Windows to continue using Windows." An oft-quoted article written by the late Microsoft developer Alex Nichol to clear up myths about Windows XP activation says that an unactivated system will do little more than boot, allow you to make backups and activate.
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Windows Vista
Windows Vista's penalty for failure to activate is much harsher that of Windows XP. After a grace period of 30 days, Vista enters "Reduced Functionality Mode" or RFM. Under RFM, you can't play any Windows games. You will also lose access to premium features such as Aero Glass, ReadyBoost or and BitLocker. Finally, an unactivated Vista will automatically log you out of the system after only one hour of use until you successfully activate it.
Windows 7
Unlike Windows XP and Vista, failure to activate Windows 7 leaves you with an annoying, but somewhat usable system. According to a Microsoft developer blog post on "Microsoft Developer Network," if you don't choose to activate Windows 7 during installation, you will see an "Activate Windows Online Now" message in the system tray. If you don't activate then, you will see and "Activate Now" message every day from day four through day 27. Until day 30, you will get the "Activate Now" message every four hours until day 30. After day 30, you will get the "Activate Now" message every hour, along with a notice that your Windows version is not genuine whenever you launch the Control Panel. In addition, Windows 7 does not perform any system updates after the grace period. Finally, Windows will automatically turn your screen background image to black every hour – even after you change it back to your preference. This behavior continues until you successfully activate Windows 7.
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