Last week, when I downloaded and installed updates on one of my
netbooks. I got a strange pop-up, apparently outside Windows update,
warning me that I might be a victim of pirates and telling me to
download and run some kind of Windows activation program to verify that
my copy of Windows waslegitimate.
  My first thought was that there couldn't possibly be an issue, that
that machine is running the version of Windows that came with it.  It's
the only computer I've ever had running Windows 7 Starter,
  As I thought about it, though, I realized that while it was he
original copy of Windows, it wasn't on the original drive.  I had, at
least 6 months previously, cloned the original 320GB hard drive (much
less than full!) to a 256GB SD, which is what's in the netbook now, and
reformatted the 320GB drive for use in my wife's MacBook, replacing its
original 80GB (or was it 120?) drive.
  Maybe Windows had finally gotten around to detecting the drive
swap....  Meanwhile, I had downloaded and launched the software they
called for. and after half an hour or so of doing nothing particularly
visible, it pronounced itself satisfied that my Windows installation was
legitimate.

David Gillett
CISSP CCNP


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