After AppleCare repair, I have to enter all my serials again. What gives?

[lord patton]

So I just got back my SR MBP from AppleCare—they replaced the logic board due to a failure of the nVidia 8600 graphics card. Now, I have to enter the serial number for all my applications (well, the ones that require it).

I needed to re-authorize iTunes (bummer, 'cause now I've used all 5). I had to reauthorize Logic Express and Sibelius, too. I'm sure there are a lot of other apps that are going to nag me now. Apps that don't even require serials (iWork, etc) are showing their welcome/getting started splash screen again. Ick.

Does anyone know what happened? It's as though they installed a new drive (although I'm sure they didn't). Did they migrate the data somewhere, and then pull it back in?

I have all my discs, so it's not as though I've lost access to pirated software. It's just an annoyance, and I don't understand why it's necessary. Really, did I have to go to my attic to retrieve the Logic Express packaging? Jeez.

 

[ThirteenXIII]

My assumption would be that since the board may be newer with newer firmware and such would cause it to change the identification of the logicboard form the previous one that was initially installed.
I think this happened to someone else I know (logic board replacement; had to reconfirm Serials, etc).


(also was it a 2.2ghz cpu/logicboard they replaced it with and not a different cpu, just a wild guess).

 

[Eddyisgreat]

activations usually trip out when major system identifying hardware is changed (like say your motherboard).

 

[RedReplicant]

I thought activations were commonly tied to MAC addresses on OSX? If that is the case then a new logicboard = a new NIC = a new MAC address.