Motherboard Change/Re-Install Vista & Office 07

  • Thread starter Thread starter Victor Papa
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V

Victor Papa

My MoBo recently died and so I'm going to replace that and CPU. Now I'm
aware that this, in the eyes of Vista, is seen as a major hardware change
and that Vista will not boot unless reinstalled but will I encounter any
authorization problems when I do and also where do I stand with the
reinstallation of Office 2007 (education ed.) that has been installed on the
now dead PC and also this laptop? Installation of Office is allowed on two
machines but how do I cancel the one on the dead PC? I guess that maybe a
phone call to Microsoft will need to be made after I've done everything. Is
this right?

Thanks in advance.

Victor
 
Mick said:
Yes victor, you wil have to contact Microsoft by phone, and speak to a real
person.
Click to expand...

Heaven forbid that he use something he paid for without getting
permission from MS first!

Alias
 
Unfortunately there's no way to remove activation from a machine, once
Windows (or Office) are installed. Apparently this was intended to be a
facility when activation was first introduced in XP, but the dev guys ran
out of time and decided they'd ship XP without it, and include
"de-activation" in the next release. But by the time Vista came around, the
forces within Microsoft advocating militant, brutal bonding of software to
hardware had the upper hand, and there was no intention of allowing Windows
to be "de-activated" to be moved to another machine. So now it's not
available, on purpose.

The algorithm which detects whether Windows is running on a new machine is
complex, and completely non-public. It's almost impossible to predict
exactly what will happen. But you'll hit one of 2 scenarios:

1) Windows will accept the hardware change as "minor" and assume you're
still running on the same machine. You can re-activate over the Internet,
with no hassle or human interaction required.

2) Windows will interpret the hardware change as "major" and assume you're
running on a different machine. Vista will not activate over the Internet,
you will get a message telling you to ring a phone number. Vista will
continue to work normally for 30 days, but you must ring and get an
activation code over the phone within that time.

Scenario (2) is a minor hassle but it shouldn't block you from upgrading
your motherboard. Once you get onto a human you just explain very briefly
what's happened and they'll give you an activation code. There's no big
interrogation, or anything. I guess if you ring several times a day for a
few days in a row, they'd start to get suspicious.

I've had less expereince with Office activation but as far as I know, it's
pretty similar - the grace period before you activate is slightly less, 25
days.

Hope it helps, good luck with the upgrade.

Andrew
 
Andrew McLaren said:
Unfortunately there's no way to remove activation from a machine, once
Windows (or Office) are installed. Apparently this was intended to be a
facility when activation was first introduced in XP, but the dev guys ran
out of time and decided they'd ship XP without it, and include
"de-activation" in the next release. But by the time Vista came around,
the forces within Microsoft advocating militant, brutal bonding of
software to hardware had the upper hand, and there was no intention of
allowing Windows to be "de-activated" to be moved to another machine. So
now it's not available, on purpose.

The algorithm which detects whether Windows is running on a new machine is
complex, and completely non-public. It's almost impossible to predict
exactly what will happen. But you'll hit one of 2 scenarios:

1) Windows will accept the hardware change as "minor" and assume you're
still running on the same machine. You can re-activate over the Internet,
with no hassle or human interaction required.

2) Windows will interpret the hardware change as "major" and assume you're
running on a different machine. Vista will not activate over the Internet,
you will get a message telling you to ring a phone number. Vista will
continue to work normally for 30 days, but you must ring and get an
activation code over the phone within that time.

Scenario (2) is a minor hassle but it shouldn't block you from upgrading
your motherboard. Once you get onto a human you just explain very briefly
what's happened and they'll give you an activation code. There's no big
interrogation, or anything. I guess if you ring several times a day for a
few days in a row, they'd start to get suspicious.

I've had less expereince with Office activation but as far as I know, it's
pretty similar - the grace period before you activate is slightly less, 25
days.

Hope it helps, good luck with the upgrade.

Andrew
Click to expand...

Thanks - I'll be back after I've finished the upgrade with news of which
scenario it was.

Victor
 
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