Vista - Question about Resintalling Vista and the Product Key Limitations

I read that the activation key is good for installing Vista on one PC only.
So, if you install Vista and use the key and activate it, but you later
decided to reinstall Vista and do it by wiping your hard drive first and then
starting over with a clean installation and re-enter your product key, how
does Microsoft know that you aren't installing Vista on a second PC? I did
this, and I had no problems re-entering my product key and activating Vista.
I'm just curious about this installation limitation and how Microsoft can
know when you have uninstalled Vista.

reductant wrote:
> I read that the activation key is good for installing Vista on one PC only.
> So, if you install Vista and use the key and activate it, but you later
> decided to reinstall Vista and do it by wiping your hard drive first and then
> starting over with a clean installation and re-enter your product key, how
> does Microsoft know that you aren't installing Vista on a second PC? I did
> this, and I had no problems re-entering my product key and activating Vista.
> I'm just curious about this installation limitation and how Microsoft can
> know when you have uninstalled Vista.

The reason you could activate without any problem is because you didn't
change any hardware. Try changing your NIC three times and see what happens.

Alias

"Alias" <aka@aka.cl> wrote in message news:f1qdvh$o86$1@aioe.org...
> reductant wrote:
>> I read that the activation key is good for installing Vista on one PC
>> only. So, if you install Vista and use the key and activate it, but you
>> later decided to reinstall Vista and do it by wiping your hard drive
>> first and then starting over with a clean installation and re-enter your
>> product key, how does Microsoft know that you aren't installing Vista on
>> a second PC? I did this, and I had no problems re-entering my product
>> key and activating Vista. I'm just curious about this installation
>> limitation and how Microsoft can know when you have uninstalled Vista.
>
> The reason you could activate without any problem is because you didn't
> change any hardware. Try changing your NIC three times and see what
> happens.

or update the firmware in the optical drive a couple of times. One of my
systems I keep the original NIC cable-tied to the inside of the case in the
event I got to re-activate as I would have too much explaining to do.


--
======================================================================
Joseph "Beemer Biker" Stateson
http://TipsForTheComputingImpaired.com
http://ResearchRiders.org Ask about my 99'R1100RT
======================================================================

Beemer Biker wrote:
>
> "Alias" <aka@aka.cl> wrote in message news:f1qdvh$o86$1@aioe.org...
>> reductant wrote:
>>> I read that the activation key is good for installing Vista on one PC
>>> only. So, if you install Vista and use the key and activate it, but
>>> you later decided to reinstall Vista and do it by wiping your hard
>>> drive first and then starting over with a clean installation and
>>> re-enter your product key, how does Microsoft know that you aren't
>>> installing Vista on a second PC? I did this, and I had no problems
>>> re-entering my product key and activating Vista. I'm just curious
>>> about this installation limitation and how Microsoft can know when
>>> you have uninstalled Vista.
>>
>> The reason you could activate without any problem is because you
>> didn't change any hardware. Try changing your NIC three times and see
>> what happens.
>
> or update the firmware in the optical drive a couple of times. One of
> my systems I keep the original NIC cable-tied to the inside of the case
> in the event I got to re-activate as I would have too much explaining to
> do.
>
>

Yep, MS is going to activate and genuine themselves out of the OS
market. Maybe they can sell a lot of XBoxes and Zunes. Or maybe they can
talk to Novell and Dell about a Linux version of Office :-)

Alias

The code that is sent out from your computer to the activation server is
created by hashing the activation key that you entered with a function that
factors in the hardware configuration and identification numbers.

"reductant" wrote:

> I read that the activation key is good for installing Vista on one PC only.
> So, if you install Vista and use the key and activate it, but you later
> decided to reinstall Vista and do it by wiping your hard drive first and then
> starting over with a clean installation and re-enter your product key, how
> does Microsoft know that you aren't installing Vista on a second PC? I did
> this, and I had no problems re-entering my product key and activating Vista.
> I'm just curious about this installation limitation and how Microsoft can
> know when you have uninstalled Vista.