If you have the same version installed on both laptops, why would you want to swap keys? What do you hope to accomplish by doing that?
Retail keys get tied to the original hardware. You'll need to activate by phone and call MS for that. But you'll need to do that for the 2nd laptop as well.
Yes, I made the change on the cd key in the Control Panel, System on the Toshiba LS505. When it went to activate the KEY on the internet, it informed me that it was not valid, and asked me to download Windows Geniune update, which I did and it gave me a "Counterfet" message. I tried 2x and both times it failed.
The CD Key I was trying to move is Geniune and works fine on the Toshiba NB205. This laptop was offline at the time (Toshiba NB205).
I rekeyed in the original CD Key back on the Toshiba LS505, and it activated fine without error.
One has media and the other CD KEY does not as I just bought the CD Key.
I want to give the laptop to a family member with the CD KEY that has the actual media. Does this make sense?
The retail installers are all the same with some versions hidden. It is only the key which determines which version it will activate.
Since these are same versions anyway, just put the DVD with the key you intend to gift. Doublecheck it's the installed key using Belarc Advisor to audit all of your Software keys on the machine.
You might want to copy the DVD first using ImgBurn, or extract its ISO to store.
Is it possible the key you bought might be faulty as we are getting reports that keys sold online at eBay are beginning to fail? http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/e...c-67e28b0c0285
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