[geeks] Adobe's Software Activation

[Geoffrey S. Mendelson]

On Tue, Feb 22, 2005 at 10:31:54PM +0200, Michael-John Turner wrote:

> My understanding is that when you activate, the vendor (Adobe, MS, etc)
> stores your 'machine ID', your product serial number and the fact that
> you've activated. When you rebuild your system and reinstall your app, 
> you enter your serial number, the app calls home, sees that it's a
> reinstall on a machine with the same machine ID and activates. This is why
> reinstalls on the same hardware work - the machine ID algorithm results in
> the same ID.

Generaly it does not matter what the machine ID is. If it gets used more than
once, it's assumed to be a reinstall. If it gets used too any times
(microsoft allows 3 times), you are asked to call customer support.

Geoff.
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