My answer has nothing to do with brown-nosing, it has to do with the
practicality of it. If he has an HP computer and the license came from them,
he doesn't have any sort of installable CDs, and the HP image isn't going to
install on a different motherboard.
If he swaps hard drives (which wasn't his plan anyway, he now notes that he
wants to sell the case and the sticker) he'd probably need to do a repair
install, and the HP software isn't going to work for that. It's going to
want to wipe the drive and start fresh, and if it sees a different
motherboard, it's not going to install at all.
As far as trying to do a repair with a different disk -- that's hit or miss.
I've had more than a few that refused to see the existing XP to do the
repair because of the way the OEM customized it.
As far as selling the case and sticker, sure he could do that, but a
proprietary HP case isn't worth much, and the sticker without installable
software isn't worth much either as there's a darned good chance that key
isn't going to work with any other CD the new user comes up with.
