I will try to see if vista will re-activate after booting up with new mobo, but its my understanding that if you had an OEM XP version (bought with computer) and you then "upgrade" to Vista, you cannot simply reactivate the "upgrade" version of Vista when you change the motherboard-reason being that MS terminated the OEM version of XP when I "upgraded" to Vista and the prior OEM XP will not work anyway considering its "tied" to the old mobo (this is why OEM versions are so much cheaper). You cannot simply reactivate your Vista upgrade on a new mobo because there is nothing to upgrade-no prior version of windows. Now, I could be completely wrong and hope I am. If I boot up and Windows just asks me to re-activate, then I can return the retail version of XP I just purchased. However, Im willing to bet Vista will not simply re-activate, that I will call the MS support line to obtain another reactivation key and they will inform me that I cannot simply reactivate an upgrade on a new mobo-you have to have a full retail version of windows previously installed (non-OEM), so that is why I purchased the full version of XP. However, I do not claim to know the intricacies of how MS Windows activations work-this is just based on all the other forums I've reviewed.
|