I got Windows Vista Ultimate Upgrade when it first came out; I installed it and activated it on my new SATA drive I got (250GB Western Digital). Since I did not care much for Vista I was still using my old hard drive that had Windows XP Pro on it. Any ways now that Windows Vista has had a few improvements I re-installed it on the SATA drive about a week ago (I wanted to start fresh) this would be my 2nd on-line activation. My 250GB SATA drive runs very loud (which I forgot), so I formatted my old 80GB Western Digital IDE drive which is super silent, and installed Vista on it before I installed Vista I did a low level format to the 250GB drive. Everything was smooth until it came to activation time; it said “This product key is already in use on another computer”, but I was still using the same computer no hardware changes, expect for switching the drives. I had to phone in and activate, and talk to a support person. I got it reactivated. I heard that you can only do that 10 times, than you have to by a new copy of Windows, so if I even make a small change like put in more ram, it counts towards my 10? Why did I have to go through this for such a small hardware change? Windows XP Pro was never this picky. Thank You, Jesse

The reason is you could have built a second system with identical hardware aside from the hard drive, installed vista on it, and put that drive in the new system, and continued to do that indefinitely with more and more systems. Not saying I necessarily agree with how Microsoft does this, but that is the reason. Honestly, XP can do the same thing. TECH-NO-LOGICAL ROMANCE! http://www.homestarrunner.com/tgs12.html

Why did I have to go through this for such a small hardware change? Because you installed Vista twice in such a short amount of time. RAM upgrades won't require you to reinstall Vista, so you should be safe. Windows XP Pro was never this picky. Expect online activation to get ever more picky as people get used to ever more invasive protection "features." Just look at the old DOS games; they reached a pinnacle of protection stupidity. Personally, I'm just waiting for the day when Windows will need to be authorized by Microsoft to boot.

"Because you installed Vista twice in such a short amount of time. RAM upgrades won't require you to reinstall Vista, so you should be safe." But RAM upgrades do count as far as activation goes & it even did in XP. XPInfo Utility ___________________________________________________________________ " The hardware change threshold is one of the least understood aspects of Product Activation. Here's a utility that can help you identify your hardware changes. When a computer's Windows XP installation is activated, Product Activation creates a hardware hash by analyzing ten pieces of hardware information in the computer: * make and model of the CPU * processor serial number (if available) * total amount of physical memory * graphics adapter * IDE controller * SCSI host adapter (if any) * any CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drives * serial number of the formatted volume where the operating system is installed, * and the MAC address and other identifying information of the installed network card (if any). As long as seven of the ten device or device categories report back as having been unchanged (what Product Activation describes as "votes" from each category), Product Activation will report the system as still being activated. Another important detail, but one that you don't see discussed much, is that after 120 days any hardware changes that remain within the threshold will become part of the new baseline for changes. Exanple: If your computer has 1 gigabyte of RAM when activated, and you add another gigabyte, the hardware "vote" for memory will indicate a change. However, 120 days from that point, the hardware "vote" for memory will no longer indicate a change." http://searchwincomputing.techtarge... http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/Prod... http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/wpa.php

I thank you for adding to the thread, but I wonder if you missed my point.

I've changed the ram quite a few times in Vista, as well as video cards and not had activation problems. However, when I changed from a dual core to a quad core, I had to reactivate via phone call. So, it APPEARS that minor changes within reason are allowed... but major changes will require reactivation