Do I have to buy another Windows 7?

Jessica said:

I have the full retail version. See this:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v4...art/retail.jpg

As I now understand it. I can do a rebuild including mobo, RAM, CPU and graphics card. Use my old hard drives (three of them) Wipe my C drive, reinstall Windows 7 64bit and then re-activate. All should then be OK.

Let me know if I got it wrong.

Cheers everyone.

That's correct, you'll have no problems; please post back to keep us updated.

MJB281 said:

As long as you are using an OEM version of Windows 7 and it is only activated on one computer you should be fine.

That's incorrect in the assumption that an OEM can be moved to another machine, it can not, an OEM version of Windows will be forever tied to the first motherboard that it's installed to and can not be moved to another PC legally and will not activate on another machine seperate from the original mobo.

Bare Foot Kid said:

MJB281 said:

As long as you are using an OEM version of Windows 7 and it is only activated on one computer you should be fine.

Bare Foot Kid said:

That's incorrect in the assumption that an OEM can be moved to another machine, it can not, an OEM version of Windows will be forever tied to the first motherboard that it's installed to and can not be moved to another PC legally and will not activate on another machine seperate from the original mobo.

Okay explain this to me then. I had a purchased Home Premium OEM version of 7 (x64) installed on my main Desktop PC. After a few weeks, I subsequently purchased an Ultimate edition for which I was given a new key with the DVD. Not wanting to totally reinstall Windows, I used the change Product key option to enter the new key, which worked as an Anytime Upgrade (I think) as the key was excepted Windows downloaded some new components, restarted and it stated it was now the Ultimate edition.

A few days later my father came round and mentioned he was thinking of buying Windows 7. So I said he could have my old copy of it as I now had Ultimate. My thinking being that the old key was now no longer in use because I had used the Ultimate key.

I told my dad to install 7 and try to activate it online and if there was a problem he could ring Microsoft and speak to someone. He did an upgrade install using the Home Premium DVD from within his existing copy of Vista. When he tried to activate it wouldn't let him and said to contact Microsoft.

After speaking to a Microsoft representative in India and explaining as I'd told him to do, that I had a new copy of Ultimate installed on my PC and had therefore given him my copy of Home Premium to use. The rep' said the key he was using was coming up as valid and should work. They tried different methods to try and get it to activate and after proving unsuccessful, for which they couldn't give an explanation as to why, they gave a completely new key to use which activated fine and he now has written down in case he ever has to do a reinstall of 7.

His PC is a completely different specification to mine, yet Microsoft was happy to let him use an OEM key supposedly tied to my specification PC. Don't get me wrong, I am happy they did, but I have had similar situations myself with an old self built Vista OEM licensed PC that died on me, so I built a new one using completely different parts and used the "died" PCs OEM copy on the new build which still successfully activated.

The only other difference is that he had to use the 32bit DVD with his hardware and I had used the 64bit DVD originally, but I believe you can only use the one key supplied with either disc.