Registering Windows Vista

[Guest]

Hi,
I have a two part question.

1) Is it possible to register my copy of windows vista from another PC?
I was determined to avoid connecting my new PC to the internet in order to
keep it "clean" for games play but I can't see a way of
validating/registering my copy unless I connect it to the internet.

2) At the moment I have a huge amount of graphics corruption when playing
games (usually after an hour or so of play). I am assuming that the graphics
corruption is due to not having validated/registered Windows Vista yet. Has
anybody else had this problem or should I give up on Vista now and install
XP!?

 

[Chad Harris]

Hi Tarzan--

I don't know what you are representing with the term graphics corruption but
I'd defrag the PC.

You can call MSFT using the number on the activation wizard to activate
Vista.

CH

 

[Guest]

Thanks Chad.

The graphics corruption is generally having black areas change to green and
a general 'shimmer' effect on the screen as colours shift around. This has
been manifesting itself after an hour of game play and after exiting the game
transfers to the vista background/wallpapers etc.
I'd be very surprised if the PC needed to be defraged as I have only
installed three games on the PC since it came out of the box. What is
concerning me is that either the PC is faulty or the games are not fully
compatible with Windows Vista.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

As Chad has mentioned, you can use the phone activation method to avoid
connecting the machine to the internet. You can't activate it from another
machine.

Not having activated it yet has nothing to do with the graphics issue. There
are several possible causes, some of which you've touched upon. The games
themselves may not be fully compatible with Vista, and for this you should
check with the vendor for a patch or upgrade. You may need to update the
video drivers to the most recent release from the card manufacturer (not a
system builder such as HP/Dell/Acer/etc., or Windows Update, but the
manufacturer themselves) as the included ones are likely to be out of date.

Other things to check would include trying to disable rom shadowing in the
system BIOS, as this sometimes causes issues. Defragging can't hurt, as
there may simply be some performance lags causing the odd displays. Both the
OS and game installs tend to be very sloppy, splattering files all over the
drive, so despite the newness of the system this is not a bad idea. You
might also try running games not listed as Vista capable in compatibility
mode for XP, this is done from the compatibility tab of the startup icon's
properties.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the feedback both of you. I'll give this a try this evening.