I've read elsewhere, and confirmed for myself, that using the laptop's switch to turn off the wifi adapter or disabling it in the device manager will change the hardware fingerprint such that LimeLM will decide that the software is unlicensed. While I have issues with that, I have been assured that they are not doing either of those things.
That's correct only if there's not an ethernet adapter on the computer (or if the customer disabled the ethernet adapter). TurboActivate tries to use the "most permanent" network adapter, but it can't read adapters it doesn't know exists. So don't disable network adapters.
One possibility that just occurred to me is that if "disconnecting the network" involved unplugging a USB cable that runs from the laptop directly to their cablemodem or disconnecting from a docking station with its own built-in network adapter, that would have the same effect, right?
Connecting to a cablemodem and/or plugging/unplugging ethernet cords has no effect on TurboActivate's fingerprint.
Adding/removing network adapters will effect the fingerprint.
Aside from network adapters, are there any peripherals that might be connected to a laptop which would affect the fingerprint if they were disconnected?
Nothing that wouldn't involve cracking open the case of the laptop.