New
#180
@ignatzatsonic: Thanks for replying. I read through this whole thread-- It looks like there were a number of people earlier in the thread who used Paragon Adaptive Restore successfully. It always sounded to me like a nifty feature, but I have seen little discussion of how to handle licensing questions.
My version of Win 7 is indeed retail, though it was an upgrade version. I don't recall what previous XP was. I thought MS changed even how the "Retail License" works, but what you are saying sounds reasonable and justifiable. I actually do have another available key. If the old hardware is not in fact broken, one could transfer an installation to newer, better hardware, and at the same time continue to use Win 7 on the old hardware. Let's say you transfer the OS plus the User to the new machine, and on that machine change the hardware drivers and then the also change the product key to a new license. (I think Windows itself includes a provision for doing this.) On the OLD machine, delete the current User and associated files and establish a new one. Or do a repair install if desired--but the old machine would keep the old product key. So the old machine would be available for another use.
Any reason the above would not work? If the old motherboard is dead, looks like what you are suggesting should work with a Retail Licesne.
Michael