Swapping out CPU's - Question

[sswilson]

Yes and No they didn't want to do it but I bitched that the mobo died and since it wasn't covered by warranty no RMA was available. It took about a hour of jaw-jacking to someone that I could barely understand ( harsh accent) to drive that home but in the end I got a new Key.

Ok then, that kinda answers my question. If it took you quite some time to get them to aprove it then my original concerns still stand and I've got yet another reason for avoiding the upgrade to Vista on my main rigs.

 

[SugarJ]

Well, when I recently changed my mobo from an Asrock X-48 to the Biostar, I deleted everything in the control panel hardware manager before shutting down. Rebooted machine with new mobo, installed drivers, it came up with a message telling me I had to buy a new copy of Vista after trying to activate online. I disconnected ethernet cable, rebooted, and activated over the phone on an automated system with no problems. Took me 6 minutes online.

Now, if you are reformatting and reinstalling, apparently their online activation servers only keep the information for 6 months. So if it's been more than 6 months since your last install with that key, supposedly there are no problems reactivating on a new configuration. (it was 3 months for me, thus the minor issue). When I changed from the Gigabyte P35 to the Asrock, it had been over 8 months since the original install and it activated with no problems.

All this was with Vista Premium 64-bit OEM, BTW.