Solved How much machine specific info is tied into an O/S installation?

The reason I'm asking this is that I'm wondering if I take an existing hard drive in my laptop and install it in another laptop, can I get it to work? I realize that I'd probably have to update a bunch of drivers, ensuring they're configured for the appropriate hardware. But is there more to it than that? Does Vista register the machine "signature" somehow and prevent itself from working on any other machine? Would I need to de-activate and re-activate it to get it to work?

Looks like there is no simple yes or no
Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Apart from the driver problems yoou will run into activation problems if the OS is OEM.

^ Ah, OK. So when it's OEM, it's "bonded" to a particular machine? There's some kind of unique identifier in the hardware that the OEM is activated against and so it can't be moved elsewhere?

richc46 said:

Looks like there is no simple yes or no
Can I move my system drive to another computer and have it work?

Click to expand...

Thanks for that link, Rich. It covers a lot of what I was suspecting, but unsure of.

^ Ah, OK. So when it's OEM, it's "bonded" to a particular machine? There's
some kind of unique identifier in the hardware that the OEM is activated against
and so it can't be moved elsewhere?

Click to expand...

That is correct.