hi

i often reinstall windows and id like to know which data would i have to backup, to be able to get my LFS activated, without having to use my activation codes.
Is it some key in the registry or something ?

thanks

There is no code in the registry or anything, but some people say you back up a specific folder in your LFS directory. Or just backup the entire folder. Still, that does not work for me, and I just have to use 1 unlock... not such a big deal.

Backing up X:\path\to\LFS\data\misc *might* keep the unlock. Depending on what you do to the PC before / after you format changes whether it stays unlocked or not

Thanks guys

well, i have a partitionned HD and i dont change anything to the LFS folder.
I did many windows installs, without changing anything to my hardware etc, but always had to unlock each time i did...
So i guess there MUST be something in the registry...

I'm afraid not. LFS doesnt write ANYTHING in the registry at all. I'm afraid theres only one man who knows for sure how it calculates the checksum, but I'd bet that its probably something to do with software keys, partition size, etc.

Quote from the_angry_angel :

I'm afraid not. LFS doesnt write ANYTHING in the registry at all. I'm afraid theres only one man who knows for sure how it calculates the checksum, but I'd bet that its probably something to do with software keys, partition size, etc.

No, it uses kind of TCPA. It checks for the hardware changes, OS changes etc. and stores actual information in some file. That's why you have to reunlock when upgrading or redoing your windows. But honestly, more than twice a month a reinstall of windows? That is more than uncommon.

/me bows to Vykos, yet again

tbh, Vykos has a good point. Even formatting once a month is excessive. If you're doing some kind of testing, perhaps a set of virtual machines would be more appropriate

just thinkin about it, would ghosting a windows partition make it so its not needed to re-unlock all the time?

Quote from Vykos69 :

But honestly, more than twice a month a reinstall of windows? That is more than uncommon.

It IS windows

I keep my LFS on it's own partition but i still have to unlock if my windows partition changes at all, i suppose a ghost might work but i doubt it, as it would make cracking LFS far too easy.

It's worth the tiny inconvenience of only having a few unlocks available, just to stop the lazy, tightwad, dis-respectfull cracker idiots out there.

I have enough unlock keys, its just to bypass the procedure (even if its easy), and after all, better to use no code than one
Its also i always want to know about what do apps install/modify etc

Quote from shim :

just thinkin about it, would ghosting a windows partition make it so its not needed to re-unlock all the time?

Nope been there done that

But as they say above ( I usually format and rebuild every 6months ) so unlocking is really no hard ship

Quote from Fordman :

Nope been there done that

But as they say above ( I usually format and rebuild every 6months ) so unlocking is really no hard ship

Hmm.. maybe I have the wrong idea about ghosting. Anyway, I have three partititions - C has Windows, D has LFS and the third is a backup partition of a clean Windows installation. Whenever I need to reinstall, I just copy the backup partition over C and LFS still works after that - cannot see why it shouldn't...

Quote from Batterypark :

Hmm.. maybe I have the wrong idea about ghosting. Anyway, I have three partititions - C has Windows, D has LFS and the third is a backup partition of a clean Windows installation. Whenever I need to reinstall, I just copy the backup partition over C and LFS still works after that - cannot see why it shouldn't...

I don't know why, but ghosting doesn't include the LFS signature, nor GTR or HL2 for that matter, so something is going a miss here

Quote from Fordman :

I don't know why, but ghosting doesn't include the LFS signature, nor GTR or HL2 for that matter, so something is going a miss here

OK. I still don't quite know what this "ghosting" is, but personally I duplicate the partition with Partition Magic and it works. I haven't touched HL2 or GTR so I don't know about those.

When you Ghost a partition, its basically an exact copy. Having not used partition magic for a long, long time, I'd hazard a guess that its the same as the duplicating you've discussed.

To be honest, before upgrading my system a few months back, I never had to unlock when I reinstalled Windows or changed my partitions. Coincidentally the upgrade was timed roughly with S2 Alpha's release, so this could be the cause of the change in the behaviour I've experienced.

Now that you mention it, I've barely touched LFS since the release of S2 alpha so it might be my experiences are from the S1 era. Perhaps it doesn't work anymore like it used to.

I just did a ghost thing (my C partition only,= windows one), and LFS is still activated, so this is okay (fortunately).