vista OEM restrictions

skiddaw

skiddaw

skiddaw

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Joined
1 Feb 2007
Posts
13
Hi,

I apologise if this has already been posted before. I'm thinking of buying Vista Home Premium 32 bit OEM. Am I right in thinking that I will not be able to install it on another computer if I decide to upgrade in the future? I've heard some rumours that even changing a component such as the graphics card will invalidate the activation. Is this true?
Are there similar restrictions with the retail version?

Secondly am i right in thinking i need to buy a hardware component along with Vista in order to purchase OEM?

Many thanks.
 
You can upgrade everything but the motherboard and no, you don't have to buy another piece of hardware or anything. So you can upgrade your graphics card etc.

Like with retail, you can only install it on one PC. It you install it on more than one activation will be most likely refused.
 
The only piece of hardware you won't be able to change without invalidating your license is the motherboard.
Retail will allow you to install on as many different builds as you like (one at a time) although two copies of OEM are cheaper than one retail so it depends how often you plan on upgrading.
 
the_box said:
i have also heard that there are ways round ie explaining you have a faulty mb, hdd and therefor you had to reinstall!
Click to expand...

Which is breaking the licencing agreement, if you want to pirate, atleast do it properly.

Burnsy
 
burnsy2023 said:
Which is breaking the licencing agreement, if you want to pirate, atleast do it properly.

Burnsy
Click to expand...

but it could be true that the motorboard is faulty. microsoft can't say no to activate your windows because they can't proof if it true or not. plus if microsoft said no and it's true that the motorboard is faulty, it will look bad on microsoft...
 
I did read recently that Microsoft may allow you to do this a couple of times but you would need to phone them for an activationn key, I recently had to do this on my windows MCE system as the motherboard and cpu actually died through a power surge and they were fine with it.
 
Speaking purely from XP activation experience on OEM provided the replacement motherboard is the same model, running the same BIOS version it will not ask you to reactive.
 
on my xp if i needed to format my hdd i always need to phone to activate. the guy from microsoft told me that you only get 1 time to activate over the internet then you would need phone if you format again. but if you don't format for 120days then it will let you activate over the internet...
but with vista i think it with let you activate windows over the internet 3 times per day..
 
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