Re: [Qemu-devel] [PATCH] Don't use QEMU_VERSION in ATA/ATAPI replies to IDENTIFY cmds

[Jamie Lokier <jamie@shareable.org>]

Marc Bevand wrote:
> Consider this scenario: I change the MAC and the host at some point;
> no reactivation required. 10 months later I simply upgrade QEMU from
> 0.9.0 to 0.9.1 and change nothing else; reactivation is required. This
> is not something an enduser would expect.

I agree.  (Also I agree with Glauber that the OS is sucky to care, but
it does and it's a notable use of QEMU to let you run Windows as a
guest so you can run Linux as a host :-)

> Another way to see it is that I was in control of the MAC and host
> change, but not of the IDENTIFY replies. An enduser should always be
> in control of the "hardware changes" he makes to a guest.

I agree.  If it's something which changes by default, then it should
be settable to a fixed value by the user somehow.  (Same goes for
other identifications the guest might see - I see that Microsoft
Virtual PC lets you specify a few of them in its config file.)

> Also, I believe (but am not sure) that if I had installed Windows on
> QEMU version A and upgraded to version B to C to D, then Windows would
> require reactivation after the upgrade to D because it would be seen
> as the 3rd "hardware change".

I don't think Windows counts these as multiple changes, but I'm not sure.

-- Jamie