Windows Vista activation after moving disk inside another machine

Question

I have a strange hardware problem on a workstation. I have another workstation available with exactly the same specifications and want to move the disk and RAM from the problematic machine to the free one. Windows Vista Business 64-bit is installed on the disk; we bought the 64-bit version after upgrading to 8GB RAM.

After moving the disk to the other machine will I have any issues around activation or licensing on the new setup?

Answer 1

With license or activation you shouldn't have any issues, however you could have problems with drivers(if your new system have another devices that not the same on the old machine), as far you will have different devices running on the new system. You can solve this by running Windows Update on the new machine and updating the device drivers. About activation, if you want to verify the activation status on the new machine, check activation with "Win Buttom + Break|Pause" shortcut.

Answer 2

If it is the same workstation, and the same BIOS configuation (such as SATA mode, CPU options (NX/VT etc.)), it is very unlikely that you will have a problem as there is not a lot of things that have changed.

that being said, far too many people worry about the Microsoft activation line. Even if the worst case scenario hits and you do have to ring up, (it is a free number) press 0 (I think it is), then just explain the situation and they will either reset the activation count or give you a code to activate.

Activation is there to stop people mass pirating, not the honest end user..