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Restore of vSphere VM causes Windows to need re-activation

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Hi,

I am using Windows (2008 R2) in a test environment and notice when I recover to a new virtual machine I need to re-activate the guest version of Windows. This does not happen with esxRanger (with vSphere 4.1 host) or Nakivo Backup and Replication (with vSphere 5.x). Is the restored VM being marked as new hardware somehow? Is this an agreement with Microsoft to force users to re-activate when a restore is performed?
PS This also happens with vmProtect 8.

Regards, Ian Gavin.

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Hello Ian,

Welcome to the Acronis forum and thank you for posting.

This is caused by native functionality of the Windows operating system. I would recommend this article from our Knowledge Base article and this Microsoft article should you have additional questions.

If there is anything else we can do for you please let us know.

Thank you.

Thanks for the reply - I have since discovered that Windows does not need to be re-activated when I restore over the existing VM so that's good enough for me.

Regards, Ian Gavin.

Ian Gavin wrote:

Thanks for the reply - I have since discovered that Windows does not need to be re-activated when I restore over the existing VM so that's good enough for me.

Regards, Ian Gavin.

Hi. was the setting already on by default? Or do we need to set it up first?