What is the 'seven vote' upgrade count?

[Lysander]

I was just reading Custom PC's review of Vista this month and they talk about how XP OEM also has a built in seven count upgrade procedure whereby you can only upgrade the components a certain amount of times. Windows keeps track of all your hardware and will only let you upgrade so often - and I'm not talking about the motherboard.

Certain components have more than one count assigned though. This sounds quite cruel and apparently Vista follows the same protocol. Anyone else know about this?

 

[the_box]

didnt think that applied anymore! although i could be mistaken

 

[NathanE]

Yes, XP has had an almost identical activation system to what is in Vista since 2001.

 

[The_KiD]

Basically means you can re-install a set number of times and activate it, once you reach that limit, you will have to call MS to activate it each time