Gene Fitz

Well, Julie, when you format your computer, you wipe out all the stored
information on it. Thus, your computer is freshly loaded. At that point, it
doesn't know whether you have activated or not..
But here is a little secret for ya.

1. Get yourself a small hard drive, doesn't need to be more than about 20
Gigs.

2. After you set Vista up and get it just how you like it, goto Start > All
Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Backup Status and Configuration.

3. Choose the Complete PC Backup option.

4. When you are there, click the text that says "Create Backup Now." You
will be prompted by a UAC message, Click to continue.

When the window comes up, asking you where to place your new backup, point
it to your extra (small) hard drive. then Click next.

What this will do is back up your computer's configuration, EXACTLY as it
sits, to a file on that hard drive that is protected, even from you.
Moreover, it is saved as activated, so when you format and restore that
back-up, it is already activated, drivers are already installed, anti-virus
and everything is already running, you will have no problems.

Now, to restore from that back-up, you put your Windows disk in, and instead
of choosing to install, you want to choose the "fix" option. When the prompt
comes up, you choose Complete PC Backup and restore from that backup.

Something else that does, is enable you to play around a little. If you
screw it up, you can always restore from that backup. And using this system,
it will automatically format, re-install, and set everything up, exactly as
it was when you created the backup. And this way only takes about 20 minutes
from disk insert to up and running happy vista.

Hope this helps :-)