Hi ez0469,
I think you haven't read my explanation carefully enough. I wasn't talking about reinstalling or not reinstalling the operating system, I was talking about the already installed or reinstalled game not working on your new PC, after you've changed some major component in it.
While the game is still new, you will be able to get another activation key for it. When the game becomes obsolete, no one will help you anymore! Go, try running a game from the early 1990's on your current PC. (One thing I do every Christmas: play a few tens of third-party levels with Wolfenstein 3-D, from 1992...
) I assure you, you will have major problems, even if the game is already cracked. (So, you may want to run it in DOSBox or a similar virtual machine emulator instead...) Now add your activation-style copy protection to it. The result, as I said: you will
need a crack for it...!
Please, don't say that this is not a major pain in the @ss. It is! I'm collecting old PC games, starting from the late 1980's, sometimes fixing them manually myself, so I have quite some experience with them...
Joe