Re: [Qemu-devel] qemu version updates break Windows activation

[Daniel P. Berrange]

On Thu, Nov 27, 2008 at 04:38:34PM +0200, Avi Kivity wrote:
> Frederik Himpe wrote:
> >Every time qemu/kvm is updated, the version strings in the virtual 
> >hardware change, which breaks an activated windows installation in qemu. 
> >Windows thinks it's running on other hardware, and requires manual re-
> >activation by phone.
> >
> >Could the version strings please be made optional in the hardware?
> >
> >  
> 
> Perhaps we should switch the version strings not to include the qemu 
> version, but instead carry their own version numbers, which would bump 
> on on incompatible change (presumably, never).

This sounds like a good idea. If a guest really badly wants to know the
QEMU version number, it is already exposed via the SMBIOS data tables,
so its redundant to include in the per-device info too.

NB, this doesn't just impact Windows - when configuring evdev in Linux
it is desirable to configure it to match based on device name, rather
than the unstable path /dev/input/event3. This is only possible if the
device name is stable though, so removing the QEMU version number would
help make more reliable Linux Xorg configs too.

Daniel
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