I have been reading around on the internet about this annoying new term in
the Vista EULA which states you can only move the OS to a new system once,
and any significant upgrades to the current system will count as it being a
new PC. I have seen theat they have changed the retail EULA so that this is
no longer the case but i had my PC built be Scan and it has the OEM version.

How resttrictive is this? For example, i backup my PC onto an external
harddrive, if my main harddrive fails and i restore windows to a new drive,
Vista will make me reactivate my license and that is my last chance!

Also, does reformatting and reinstalling the OS count as a go or does this
not count because the hardware signature of the PC is still the same.

I think the fact that changing the hard-drive makes you reinstall is
ridiculous, many people want to upgrade to a larger HDD and this now
restricts you.

You can reinstall Vista OEM as many times as you like on your original
computer. As long as you use the same motherboard, you can change any or all
of the other devices such as your hard drives , cpu, video card, amount of
ram, etc.
If you don't want to reinstall your OS after changing the HDD it is
installed on, then use imaging software.
You image your hard drive, swap the drive with the larger one, then use the
imaging software to put the files back onto the new HDD.
Vista Ultimate, and Business has imaging built into the backup application
(using the full backup option).

You can keep changing hardware as much as you like as long as you use the
same motherboard. You might have to reactivate after a hardware change and
you might have to do this by the phone method. You can reactivate as many
times as you like as necessary, there is not license restriction or limited
number of times on doing this.

The versions that are not OEM, but are instead the Retail versions, can be
moved to another computer, as long as it is removed from the previous
computer.

"jan" <jan@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:A475421F-4A2C-4C29-8022-685655FEA9F5@xxxxxx

> I have been reading around on the internet about this annoying new term in
> the Vista EULA which states you can only move the OS to a new system once,
> and any significant upgrades to the current system will count as it being
> a
> new PC. I have seen theat they have changed the retail EULA so that this
> is
> no longer the case but i had my PC built be Scan and it has the OEM
> version.
>
> How resttrictive is this? For example, i backup my PC onto an external
> harddrive, if my main harddrive fails and i restore windows to a new
> drive,
> Vista will make me reactivate my license and that is my last chance!
>
> Also, does reformatting and reinstalling the OS count as a go or does this
> not count because the hardware signature of the PC is still the same.
>
> I think the fact that changing the hard-drive makes you reinstall is
> ridiculous, many people want to upgrade to a larger HDD and this now
> restricts you.

"Gary Mount" <gary_mount@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OK7sQF3qIHA.1872@xxxxxx

> You can reinstall Vista OEM as many times as you like on your original
> computer. As long as you use the same motherboard, you can change any or
> all of the other devices such as your hard drives , cpu, video card,
> amount of ram, etc.

Can I just add to this the fact that I built my own PC, I purchased all the
components from one supplier who was then able to supply me with an OEM of
Vista. However a few months into using this it became clear there was a
motherboard problem so I decided to upgrade the motherboard to a high-spec
one.

When It reinstalled the O/S it came to the activation part which I chose to
do by phone, I was passed to an operative who questioned what was going on,
I explained I had a PC that had a faulty mobo and the mobo replaced, I told
him I could supply receipts to prove ownership of components and replaced
mobo if he wanted, he said that was unnecessary and gave me an activation
code.

Speak nicely, sound troubled, act dumb!