Multiple installs of Vista

[ghell]

First off, no, I'm not trying to install vista on multiple machines at once.

I have heard that vista only allows you to install once. However, I usually find with both windows and linux, that the first few times I install an operating system, I mess something up irreparably (such as my current problem of installing my graphics drivers before my chipset drivers so SLI doesn't work and not being able to uninstall either sufficiently to reinstall in the correct order and get them working, being too lazy to call india to activate xp yet again I have been waiting for vista to come out since august) so is it even possible to reinstall vista?

There is a hardware profile involved in the activation so if you uninstall on one machine and install on another (which is legal right?) you simply can't do it? Ditto for just getting totally new machines and for upgrading whatever hardware features are in the activation, likely things like hard drives, or moving over from one hard drive to another by reinstall (I know someone who has already upgraded his hard drive because the old one was too small and tried using norton ghost to transfer, but he has to reactivate vista after the transfer and it wont let him activate (I assume he has to call them up to activate it))

[firepages]

I have always found XP activation staff very good on the phone... I think they were deliberately slack with XP activation because of certain factors specific to XP, I suspect that they will be less flexible with Vista activation issues.

Of course XP activation was retroactively imposed which meant that MS had to be gentle :)

All the FUD I have read so far suggests that the Vista license is only transferable once i.e. you can transfer it to a new machine once only, not to a third if you upgrade twice.

I have never yet had a phone activation refused for a change of hard-drive or mobo/CPU etc & I am unsure how much hardware info the XP activation code contains but you can bet your butt that the Vista activation codes will be carrying some pointers that will give MS a better idea of your hardware status.

Only way to find out at this early point is to suck it and see.

[ghell]

I'm relatively sure that sending hardware profiles with the activation was only introduced in vista.

As I said, vista definately contains hardware profiles and switching just the hard drive is enough to disable the standard activation and require phone activation (I haven't heard from that guy if the phone activation has worked yet)

I wonder how many people will complain about microsoft (they will undoubtedly call it M$ or microshaft) reading their hardware information, as if it were a real privacy concern..

[firepages]

XP has required reactivation due to hardware changes for some time, but it appears that the hardware in question was random since some machines would require reactivation after a new mobo and some not.

What I am unsure about is how much info MS could glean from the activation code.. I know that they could tell if the machine was a volume license and in such cases that the machine in question `should` be a laptop or a desktop (with volume dell's & hp's etc)

I suspect that with Vista they will know lot more , that they know this is of no concern to me nor really should it be to anyone else, its the reasons for wanting to know such that are less than satisfactory, as long as I only use the license on one machine at a time I don't see what Microsoft have to complain about, they seem to see this differently?

[ghell]

I don't know about XP, I had xp pro on an old pc (the motherboard was from the era that agp was new and it originally had a voodoo 3 in it) that died on me, then built a totally new high end pc (core 2 duo, sli pcie x16s, physx etc) and put the old xp and activated it fine (though there is a 3 activation limit or something)

my comment about people complaining about microsoft and privacy issues comes from going to a university in which one student even refused to accept a £200 (which is what, $400 AUD or something) prize from microsoft, purely based on the fact he thinks microsoft is evil or something along those lines ... I use linux and windows side by side all the time but I don't think microsoft is evil, if they offered me money for nothing I would definately take it :P

[firepages]

I have never personally thought of Microsoft as evil etc, its just good business, and that student was a dill :) ... could'a sent me the money instead !

I have always admired Bill Gates on many levels and still do even though he seems out of touch these days ... but Steve Balmer ... well don't get me started on him and his false IP/linux FUD

I do however have a axe to grind with where Microsoft is going with licensing and DRM, e.g. from what I have read it will not be possible to pipe legally purchased HD premium content on vista to say your HiDef TV since they(or someone) considers the HDMI output insecure ...

OK I don't personally give 2 hoots about that or HiDef in general, but releasing an OS which intentionally cripples itself seems if nothing else .. strange ?

[ghell]

Yea, the whole HDMI thing confuses me, isn't there something that says that a HD tv can be rendered non HD permanently if you dont use a certified hd device to send to it or something rediculous like that..

I thought the microsoft thing was just you only got microsoft software for it if you got vista ultimate, but you could use 3rd party software for it if not, but I haven't read anything about it.

Can HD content be sent over a DVI (or multiple DVI?) cable? I have an "HD Ready" tv but out of about 200 I found, only 2 of them used HDMI at all.

Still, at least whatever Microsoft is doing isn't as bad as the sony rootkit