All of a sudden Windows says it's not validated?

How strange....I fire up Windows just now, and out of the blue I get a message from Microsoft Security Essentials that my copy of Windows is not validated and that unless I take action, Security Essentials will be invalidated in 30 days. To fix this, I had to visit the MS website and download a validation tool. Yet this is a boxed copy of Windows 7 that I bought a couple of years ago and I've never had any "validation" problems with it. I wonder what could have happened to make this warning pop up? The only vaguely freaky thing I've done in the past 24 hours is to go into the boot options in msconfig and set the boot process to work with all 6 of my cores (apparently this is supposed to speed up boot time, although so far I can't say I've noticed a difference). I wonder if just doing something as simple as that has triggered something untoward. 

Well I guess I was persuaded into thinking that the "number of processors" was referring to cores, given that it gave me the option of specifying up to 6, which is how many cores I have. In fact a quick Google would confirm that by "processors" they mean cores. 
 
However it also seems that it's a myth that changing this setting will increase boot time. The option is there to limit how many processors are used during the boot for troubleshooting purposes. Without the box checked, Windows will use as many cores as it needs. Apparently. 

Microsoft certainly seem to think cores are CPU's. For instance, in the performance tab in the task manager, check the View Menu->CPU history setting. It gives you two options: "One graph, all CPU's" or "one graph per CPU." If you have "one graph per CPU" selected, then the CPU Usage History will show as many graphs as you have cores. 

I guess it doesn't matter because I ran the validation tool and all seems to be well. But from the example I gave above it does seem that Microsoft thinks of a core as a CPU, and I can't find anything online which says that the # of boot processors setting refers to individual chips instead of cores. In fact everything I've read implies that it's referring to cores. And sorry to nitpick, but why would it give me the option of setting 1-6 processors if it means actual chips, when surely Windows would be able to detect that I only have one chip? Unless 6 CPU's is the maximum allowed on a multiprocessor system? I can't imagine that it is. I guess this could be settled by someone with 4 cores checking to see if it gives them the option of booting with 1-4 processors. 
 

You think you're having fun now, sharke, wait till you actually do change your hardware profile by upgrading the motherboard. Then you get to plead with a dozen different companies to let you keep using your plugins!

Ya, back about 1985 people decided to buy IBM compatible computers since IBM endorsed Microsoft. (they are sorry they did that). But people decided to buy those computers over Apple at the time anyway.
 
Sorry I have to use a Windows computer, because before I had an Apple computer and it worked.
 

Well, I've never been validated.
 
What's the point? Ya?

Anything else not understood about computers? Processing cores are not complete processors like the central entire CPU which is the complete processor. The cores only do a limited amount of work, in storing instructions (that would have to be read again by the CPU in memory taking longer) in their cache, and storing frequently used instructions to speed up the computer by making the complete processor CPU faster. They do not work like the complete CPU in the computer and can not and never will be able to do as much. They assist the complete CPU processor.
 
 

It's not bad until Windows says YOU'RE not validated.

I saw it in v2, but since that was IBM's short-lived attempt to get rid of Microsquish, I've ignored it ever since.

Hi,
 
Update on Microsoft Complaint:
 
9 hours on the phone
 
On both computers with W8-Pro:
 
Comp A and B boot
Comp A finds network and folders
Comp B doesn't
Do a Share/unshare of a folder on Comp A
Comp B refreshes network information and brings things up
 
Both computers LOSE your specific power settings when updating W8.
Both computers LOSE network settings upon ANY reboot or reset
Both computers LOSE their "trust pc" information with Microsoft, which you CAN NOT remove!
Both PC's force you to have a Microsoft account, btw ... and you can not have an option to separate it from them!
Both computers check with the Microsoft account on an average of about 2 to 3 times per minute.
Both computers disable/change settings on your machine, when they can not connect to the Microsoft Account
 
Want me to go on?
 
Conclusion:
1. Frustration!
2. Microsoft is setting this up for you to be their slave! And a part of their CLOUD!
3. Microsoft can not escalate anything, because their programmers and idiots are "non-existant" and they are like GOD ... you can not talk to them, because they all say you are the idiot and you did not install things correctly ... and their support in India ... has been good ... but I fixed the issue, albeit it, there are issues saving system files and their settings.
 
Basically the Home Group is ****ed up, and does not talk to the network! And the updating of those settings are completely ignored and do not change anything!
 
More as I come up to it ... State Attorney letter got a nice response btw ... and I'm waiting for Bill Gates to show up at my door and give me something for free for my time and effort to help them! I'll probably give him a kick in the butt and tell him I don't want his bad software that doesn't work!
 

Windows does know the difference between Processors and Cores.
 
Traditionaly, processors (the square lump with a big heat sink) only had one core. You could call this a CPU.
Motherboards were available that could take 2 or more processors (CPUs) and Windows licencing would count them to determine if it would run or not.  Windows "desktop" versions work with up to 2 processors only. Windows "server" versions have special licencing based on the number of processors being used.
 
In a processor with multiple cores, each core is a self contained CPU.  Windows allows as many cores as you can stuff under the heat sink in one processor and calls each one a CPU (which it is).  Turning on hyper-threading in your motherboard bios seperates the twin data paths that each core has to make them work independantly, effectivly doubling the number of cores, with a slight efficiency hit.  Windows will then see double the number of cores and display them all in task manager.
 
The servers in our rack use Intel Xeon processors.   Each server has 2 processors, each with 6 cores, each with hyper-threading, Windows displays 24 CPUs.   The Server licence is for 2 processors.
 

I don't care what Microsoft calls it, a lot of people call things but not totally accurate.
The cores are not complete processors and can not do as much as the entire complete 1 CPU, that is all I was saying.
 
Whatever someone calls it is irrelevant, the cores just don't work that way.
If you read programming books, then you would see that.
And Intel has plenty to read about any of it.
(for free).
 
I don't care what anyone calls it really!

 
You haved 6 central processing units (cores)(cpu's) in one computer processing unit (CPU).
 
And since Microsoft abbreviates does not mean you can. If Windows states you only have 1 CPU when it installs, that is all you have, no matter how many central processing units the computer processing unit has.
 

 
And you must pay them and thank them for all of it or any of it I guess, but why??
 

No one forces anyone to sign up to Windows Live.  I've just spent £38,000 upgrading/replacing the IT systems at work without going anywhere near Windows Live.

No,  we couldn't afford 5..