Does windows 10 put data on your mainboard?

2 risposte [Ultimo contenuto]
tonlee
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Iscritto: 09/08/2014

Lets say you have a new desk top mainboard. Is there any windows data on the mainboard? In the uefi, the tpm? Does windows put data on the mainboard, if you install windows 10?
What about windows 7, 8?
I have a windows 7 license. I will not test windows 7 or 10 on the desktop, if windows puts data on the mainboard.
I got a notebook. It came with windows 8. I did not activate it and have gnulinux installed on the notebook. Because it came with windows 8 are there any windows data on the notebook's mainboard? If there are, can I get rid of them? Thanks.

nevermoreraven
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Iscritto: 10/15/2014

Can't you just flash the bios to get rid of anything windows added?

loldier
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Iscritto: 02/17/2016

I don't think it's anything that was added by Windows. The BIOS string is there because the manufacturer (OEM) added it there. All BIOS flash ROMs from the OEM are likely to add that string back if it was there in the first place. You'd need a completely free BIOS ROM (LibreBoot).

I have flashed my BIOS several times to the latest and still the computer knows it's eligible for the Windows 7 that came with it. The install media works the same after numerous reflashes and it's a full clean (free of bloatware) install DVD, not a recovery media tampered by the OEM with all its caveats and crapware. It's not vanilla, though, because the media uses an installation program that has activation embedded provided that the OEM string matches. A downloaded vanilla Win 7 DVD would ask for a key (but you can't download a Win 7 media from MS, they removed that, unless you're a volume licensed corporation). This is not the case with Win 10 anymore. All consumer grade Win 10 copies are activated the same based on the BIOS string or motherboard hash/server key even if the ISO was donwloaded from elsewhere.

If they sold the computer bare of a preinstalled operating system, they use a BIOS where there's no OEM string that activated Windows and the BIOS can't be flashed with an OEM BIOS that contains the string. These cases must be virtually non-existent. Practically all computers come with Windows save for those that came from Apple or a GNU/Linux friendly manufacturer. Of course, if you built your PC yourself you don't have this issue at all. Few people build a laptop from parts that I'm aware of. I guess there must be barebone laptops somewhere but again they don't have this issue.

Retail Windows installations do not use the string in the BIOS. They send a hashed ID made from the motherboad serial numbers. They are unique to each machine and they are stored not on the computer but on MS activation servers. I read somewhere that Windows on boot creates this hash every time it makes a cold start and that hash is periodically (when applying updates) checked against the server hash to make sure the motherboard has not been changed when it would be a new computer.