Vista - do and can i reinstall vista home prem

i bought the upgrade fom win xp to vista home basic then went online
and upgraded to vista home prem , now i have a new system faster and
better for vista . I want to take the hd out of the older machine and
put it in the new faster machine, would that would involve reinstalling
win vista cause its a new or diffrent mb etc... would i be able to do
that? and how ? i have both serial numbers for the home basic up grade
form xp... and the current serail number for vista home prem ...

Hi

With the significant change in hardware, you'll likely have to reinstall and
reactivate. Normally, this is not a problem though it does require that you
phone in the new activation, so it's a bit of a pain for some.

One issue that may be of concern: As you have upgraded an existing XP
system, the license you have to use Vista is predicated upon it (meaning you
got the cheaper upgrade because you already owned an XP license, and the
license for the use of XP becomes part of your Vista license). If your XP
license was OEM, it is generally not transferable to new hardware and it
follows that your Vista license would not be either as it uses the XP
license as its basis for install rights.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"mschrader" <mschrader@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:0589FC03-1CFA-46DC-A77C-474CCE3224A1@microsoft.com...
>i bought the upgrade fom win xp to vista home basic then went online
> and upgraded to vista home prem , now i have a new system faster
> and
> better for vista . I want to take the hd out of the older machine
> and
> put it in the new faster machine, would that would involve
> reinstalling
> win vista cause its a new or diffrent mb etc... would i be able to
> do
> that? and how ? i have both serial numbers for the home basic up
> grade
> form xp... and the current serail number for vista home prem ...

"mschrader" wrote
>i bought the upgrade fom win xp to vista home basic then went online
> and upgraded to vista home prem , now i have a new system faster
> and
> better for vista . I want to take the hd out of the older machine
> and
> put it in the new faster machine, would that would involve
> reinstalling
> win vista cause its a new or diffrent mb etc... would i be able to
> do
> that? and how ? i have both serial numbers for the home basic up
> grade
> form xp... and the current serail number for vista home prem ...

To move Vista from one computer to another, it needs to be a retail license.
Since you installed Vista as an upgrade over XP, the Vista licenses are
transferrable, but there must be a qualifying version of XP on the new
computer to allow use of the Vista upgrade license. You originally
installed Vista over XP. What type of XP was that? OEM or retail? If it
was OEM, then you cannot transfer it to the new computer, hence the Vista
upgrade install is not valid on the new computer. If the XP version was
retail then fine (but you also won't be able to run XP separately on the old
computer. The XP license is subsumed into the Vista license. Once Vista is
installed the qualifying XP OS cannot be installed separately). If it was
OEM then it has to stay with the original computer and you need to have a
separate copy of XP on the new computer to qualify for using those Vista
upgrade licenses on it.

So please clarify the situation.

--
Rock [MS-MVP User/Shell]