Was it just a lucky install...twice?

[hawgwash]

Ok, never mind, I was completely misunderstood.

 

[AddRAM]

Huh ?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

To recap:

You upgraded two unrelated XP machines to Windows 7 with an OEM disc and activated both with a single Product Key?

I have no idea why you've had no trouble, but I never use OEM licenses and am not completely bewildered by your experience. Nor do I know if you still might have trouble. I've heard of supposed OK activations going bad eventually.

The standard rule is "one license for one machine" except that retail licenses can be moved to another machine, but still only 1 machine at a time.

You do have my undying admiration for having successfully used anything called "Transfer Wizard". And for having the nerve to even try it.

 

[hawgwash]

Lol and I guess I failed to make myself very clear.

 

[AddRAM]

ignatz, you must be psychic

 

[hawgwash]

To recap:

You upgraded two unrelated XP machines to Windows 7 with an OEM disc and activated both with a single Product Key?

I have no idea why you've had no trouble, but I never use OEM licenses and am not completely bewildered by your experience. Nor do I know if you still might have trouble. I've heard of supposed OK activations going bad eventually.

The standard rule is "one license for one machine" except that retail licenses can be moved to another machine, but still only 1 machine at a time.

You do have my undying admiration for having successfully used anything called "Transfer Wizard". And for having the nerve to even try it.

No, it wasn’t one disk and one key and maybe OEM wasn’t the right term.
I got the disks and HDDs from a neighbourhood PC shop that closed up and cleared everything out. The transfer wizard was
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-ca/windows7/products/features/windows-easy-transfer
What I was getting at was; was I lucky to just be able to swap hard drives and do the installs without backing up or imaging and not knowing what was really on the old drives.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

What I was getting at was; was I lucky to just be able to swap hard drives and do the installs without backing up or imaging and not knowing what was really on the old drives.[/FONT][/COLOR]

I was unclear what you meant in your original post and made a stab based on what I thought you meant.

I'm even less clear now about what you did, despite your attempted clarification.

 

[hawgwash]

What I was getting at was; was I lucky to just be able to swap hard drives and do the installs without backing up or imaging and not knowing what was really on the old drives.[/FONT][/COLOR]

I was unclear what you meant in your original post and made a stab based on what I thought you meant.

I'm even less clear now about what you did, despite your attempted clarification.

Let me try again.
Must be the long day…
When I was talking with you and the others in the Macrium Forum, I learned that the hard drives can have any number of things, some visible some hidden and, as you said “OEMs can put some cuckoo stuff on OEM partitions” I just wondered if the way I had done the drive swap was unorthodox and a lucky miss on some major failure.

But never mind, I’ll just keep reading and learning without doing before asking.

Thanks for all your help.

 

[gregrocker]

Always delete all partitions during a Clean Reinstall Windows 7.

The exception is Dell and HP which have a bootable diagnostics utility partition. If it will boot and run after testing it then I would keep that partition only. HP also has a minimal Factory Recovery which is close to a Clean Reinstall. These and other Special Notes are at the end of the tutorial.

 

[hawgwash]

Thanks for that gregrocker.
I learned a lot here yesterday and the biggest discovery was; I have a lot TO learn.
Terminology being right up there.

A year ago “partition” was not in my vocabulary. I thought all that was on a HD was data and the OS; that all I needed to do was follow the steps of a fresh install. I didn’t think about it again until now, as I have an old machine to physically dismantle and put back together…just to see how it all works.

Thanks again, I’m off to read some more.

 

[AddRAM]

hawgwash, are you changing your font color ? It doesn`t even show up using the black forum skin. All I see is an empty reply box.

 

[hawgwash]

Now you really got me scratching my head.
I've changed nothing, I see it and obviously gregrocker read me two posts ago.
Does anyone see this?

 

[gregrocker]

Brian is a the dark Forums skin (from menu at bottom of each page) which has some problems reading some fonts.

 

[hawgwash]

Phew!
After thoroughly confusing everyone yesterday, I thought maybe I was confusing myself AND my keyboard.
Some of my posts have been done on word doc with my default Arial font. Maybe that's the problem.
I notice when I do that, some words jam together likethis.

Maybe I should just go back to knitting...

 

[gregrocker]

Bingo!

When I composed a tutorial on Word and pasted it in, I soon got complaints that it wasn't readable in dark skins.

 

[hawgwash]

Interesting.
So how would you now do a tutorial?

Aother thing;
Your post # 13 shows (to me):
"Brian is a the dark Forums skin (from menu at bottom of each page) which has some problems reading some fonts."
But in the email notification it reads:
"Brian is using the dark forum skin (from menu at bottom of each page) which has some problems reading some fonts.

 

[gregrocker]

Posts can be written in the reply box. This is what it's for.

 

[AddRAM]

Now I can see it no problem.

Uhhhhhhhh.... Why would you use word document to reply in a forum

Greg, I`ve never had a problem reading posts with this skin, only when people do it incorrectly, as in this case

That`s why I said ignatz must be psychic

 

[hawgwash]

Yeah, well, I know that much
I just thought, a tutorial takes a lot of work and I don't know if I would like to do one solely in the reply box.

And it sure doesn't help my feeble old brain when what I mean and say doesn't show up coherently; either via formatting or my own communication.

The dark side, yeah, that's it.

 

[hawgwash]

Now I can see it no problem.

Uhhhhhhhh.... Why would you use word document to reply in a forum

Greg, I`ve never had a problem reading posts, only when people do it incorrectly, as in this case

If you knew how long it takes me to peck out a few words, with fingers like hooves and how many corrections I have to make, you might understand.

Also, I have found not all forums are created equal.
Perhaps you are right and I am doing it incorrectly but this is the first time (forum) the issue has arisen, at least for me.
See? I just learned another thing here.