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Updating My Video Card Drivers Invalidated My Windows RRS feed

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    I was shocked when I used Windows Update yesterday to update the drivers for my nVidia GeForce 7900 GT and my Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit suddenly started throwing up messages about my copy of Windows not being genuine. I ran Microsoft's MGADiag tool, and was told that my license was invalid. I then rolled back my video card driver and ran the MGADiag tool again - now my copy of Vista is genuine again. I couldn't believe that anything having to do with a driver, especially something as commonly updated as a video card driver, would affect WGA. I've rebooted several times since this fiasco, installed a few different windows updates, and everything is still okay. What the hell is that about? Hopefully some of you might find this experience useful in troubleshooting your own problems with WGA. Good luck.

    Sunday, August 26, 2007 5:08 PM

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     Dreadnaught9 wrote:

    I was shocked when I used Windows Update yesterday to update the drivers for my nVidia GeForce 7900 GT and my Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit suddenly started throwing up messages about my copy of Windows not being genuine. I ran Microsoft's MGADiag tool, and was told that my license was invalid. I then rolled back my video card driver and ran the MGADiag tool again - now my copy of Vista is genuine again. I couldn't believe that anything having to do with a driver, especially something as commonly updated as a video card driver, would affect WGA. I've rebooted several times since this fiasco, installed a few different windows updates, and everything is still okay. What the hell is that about? Hopefully some of you might find this experience useful in troubleshooting your own problems with WGA. Good luck.

     

    Dreadnaught:

     

    When you update drivers, many times it changes the hardware signatures, IRQ settings, COM settings, etc - which sometimes will require reactivation (not to be confused with Validation) of the PC.

     

    This can be done pretty quickly over phone/internet.

     

    -phil

    Monday, August 27, 2007 6:48 PM

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    Hello there, time traveller.

     

    Yes, the genuineness of your Windows purchase depends on your video drivers along with a ton of other criteria.  This was discovered five years ago in Windows XP.  So now we see that Vista is backwards compatible after all.

     

    Meanwhile I'm curious about Microsoft's timekeeping system.  Microsoft says your original message will be posted today at 5:08 PM UTC.  That's about 11 hours in the future.  How did you get it here so fast?  I'm posting this reply today at around 4:27 AM UTC.
    Monday, August 27, 2007 4:27 AM
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    Same thing here.

     

    I just changed my videocard from an ATI to NVidia and Vista is no longer activated.

     

    Didn't they say that Vista would be more lenient than XP when it comes to upgrading HW? If a simple videocard change invalidates Vista, guess not.

     

    The phone thingie where you enter 80+ characters worked to validate it again but this should really be fixed.

     

    Mark

     

    Monday, August 27, 2007 10:32 AM
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     Dreadnaught9 wrote:

    I was shocked when I used Windows Update yesterday to update the drivers for my nVidia GeForce 7900 GT and my Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit suddenly started throwing up messages about my copy of Windows not being genuine. I ran Microsoft's MGADiag tool, and was told that my license was invalid. I then rolled back my video card driver and ran the MGADiag tool again - now my copy of Vista is genuine again. I couldn't believe that anything having to do with a driver, especially something as commonly updated as a video card driver, would affect WGA. I've rebooted several times since this fiasco, installed a few different windows updates, and everything is still okay. What the hell is that about? Hopefully some of you might find this experience useful in troubleshooting your own problems with WGA. Good luck.

     

    Dreadnaught:

     

    When you update drivers, many times it changes the hardware signatures, IRQ settings, COM settings, etc - which sometimes will require reactivation (not to be confused with Validation) of the PC.

     

    This can be done pretty quickly over phone/internet.

     

    -phil

    Monday, August 27, 2007 6:48 PM
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     Dreadnaught9 wrote:

    I was shocked when I used Windows Update yesterday to update the drivers for my nVidia GeForce 7900 GT and my Windows Vista Ultimate 64-bit suddenly started throwing up messages about my copy of Windows not being genuine. I ran Microsoft's MGADiag tool, and was told that my license was invalid. I then rolled back my video card driver and ran the MGADiag tool again - now my copy of Vista is genuine again. I couldn't believe that anything having to do with a driver, especially something as commonly updated as a video card driver, would affect WGA. I've rebooted several times since this fiasco, installed a few different windows updates, and everything is still okay. What the hell is that about? Hopefully some of you might find this experience useful in troubleshooting your own problems with WGA. Good luck.

    Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:04 PM