The Windows operating system saves registration information to the PC the system was properly registered on. The file is created whenever Windows is activated on a system. It contains hardware information, which means that it cannot be copied to a new computer to activate the computer directly. On the same computer however, a restoration will activate the system without running the activation procedure again.

This highlights one use for tools to backup and restore Windows activation information. Windows users who buy pre-build computers have another. They often get a pre-activated version of the operating system when they buy the PC from a major manufacturer. They can reinstall Windows on the computer without activation if they use the supplied media or recovery partition. This is however not always possible. To avoid hassles like having to call OEM support or Microsoft to sort out the issues, one could simply backup the activation information before the re-installation, and restore the information after the system has been installed from scratch on the same computer.

Two programs are available that can backup the required files and information.