Paul Randall

Read your Eula a little closer. Doesn't it say something about the hard
drive it is loaded on? A different hard drive making it a different
computer or some weasel words to that effect?

I've seen WXP CDs shipped with Dell computers that would install without
requiring activation on much older Dell computers. It is possible that your
preactivation may be broken by being on a hard drive with a different serial
number, or at some later date by some update. Many people have complained
in this newsgroup about updates breaking their activation, or its becoming
broken for no apparent reason. There are a lot of similar complaints about
many other things in Vista breaking for no apparent reason too. You are in
a good position to experiment and see what can be done without breaking your
system and what things actually do break your system.

-Paul Randall


"G-Man" <g_foreman@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:8835E3DA-BE10-4CBE-B4DA-A3BCADCCA28F@microsoft.com...
> Paul,
>
> FYI, Ghost will work. After you restore an image, you need to boot the
> Vista DVD and choose Repair. It fixes a minor thingy in the boot file and
> works just fine. I have made two hard drives and been switching between
> both. As far as Microsoft is concerned, the machine is the same, same
> hardware, same OS and key, Same MAC address, etc. etc.
>
> If my software is licensed to one computer (as I read in my EULA), I AM
> using it only on one computer.
>
> G-Man
>
>
>
>
> "Paul Randall" <paulr901@cableone.net> wrote in message
> news:uKUwKdr1HHA.5164@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>>
>> "G-Man" <g_foreman@yahoo.com> wrote in message
>> news:1C05BD88-ACE5-4FD5-9365-90D311F309A1@microsoft.com...
>>> My new Dell Latitude came with Vista Ultimate. I made a ghost image of
>>> the
>>> hard drive before it was ever booted in case I needed to go back to day
>>> one.
>>>
>>> I have two extra hard drives. I will have Flight Sim X on one and also
>>> use
>>> it for testing, and I will probably use the other for XP or Linux.
>>>
>>> I question is can I use my Vista Ultimate on more than one drive? I
>>> will
>>> only be using it on ONE computer.
>>>
>>> I guess the question is two fold.
>>>
>>> 1. Is it possible
>>>
>>> 2. Is it legal
>>>
>>> I have Microsoft Action Pack and can load Vista Business on the other
>>> drive,
>>> but it's easier just to ghost it back. I also hate to waste the extra
>>> licenses if not needed.
>>
>> Of course it is possible. You could install a mobile rack and have 10
>> trays containing hard drives with copies of your 'out of the box' ghost
>> image, and each one would boot up just fine without requiring activation.
>> Dell may have included some ways to trip you up, but I've only found one
>> such barrier with my Compaq desktop system - it is a minor inconvenience.
>> The legality depends on the license agreement, which of course is always
>> trumped by the governmental laws pertaining to your location. No one can
>> give you a definitive answer on the legality unless they study those
>> laws.
>>
>> I'm happy to see that someone else has had the foresight to create an
>> 'out of the box' image of their hard drive. That makes it so easy to
>> figure out problems with various hardware or software packages that are
>> not as Vista compatible as they claim. I've tried Compaq's process using
>> the recovery partition to restore the system to 'out of the box'
>> conditions. It is close, but definitely not identical to what I get from
>> my Ghost image.
>>
>> Note that the DOS version of Ghost may not properly restore the Vista
>> Master Boot Record. Mine doesn't. I used a DOS freeware named
>> MbrWizD.exe to save and restore the MBR.
>>
>> -Paul Randall
>>
>