Is Vista Home Premium Upgrade tied to MB

[Budman]

Quick question. Is the Vista Home Premium Upgrade tied to the motherboard like the OEM version is. If I upgrade (new MB, CPU & RAM) or build a new box can I move the activation over to the upgrade/new box.

 

[DeaconFrost]

You somewhat answered your own question. If your license is OEM, than yes. If it is a Retail Upgrade, then no.

 

[MrMitch]

you can move a retail upgrade lisence.

big question is: on your new build, what OS are you upgrading from for vista? i.e. you plan on purchasing legal XP,install it on the new rig then upgrading it with vista.



Thats a super proper route, but i've managed to do the double install trick with a vista upgrade after a rebuild no problem.

 

[E4g1e]

you can move a retail upgrade lisence.

big question is: on your new build, what OS are you upgrading from for vista? i.e. you plan on purchasing legal XP,install it on the new rig then upgrading it with vista.



Thats a super proper route, but i've managed to do the double install trick with a vista upgrade after a rebuild no problem.

The "upgrade" install option on the Vista Home Premium Upgrade DVD only works from XP Home, XP MCE or Vista Home Basic. The "upgrade" option can also be used on an unactivated "trial version" of Vista Home Premium. If you have XP Pro, a clean install (using the "clean install" option) is required -- but the installation may not work properly (or cannot be activated successfully) if installed this way, forcing you to perform a "third install" trick (upgrading the initial "clean install"). And yes, I have performed the "double install" trick for Vista upgrade DVDs successfully.

And once activated, Microsoft gives you a three-day (72-hour) leeway from the first activation, during which you may reactivate online. But after the three-day period until six months are up (yes, Microsoft's activation servers will keep Vista activation codes for 180 days instead of XP's 120 days), any reinstalls must be activated by phone since the online activation will not complete successfully under those circumstances. My single experience with Microsoft's phone activation was uneventful (nothing extraordinary).