On my main desktop PC at home, I use Windows Vista with the free product key that I got for being a beta tester. But months ago, I changed around the hardware in my PC which caused me to loose my activation status. Now I know that I could simply call up Microsoft's activation phone number to fix that, but I'm lazy. I figured that I'll just wait until my next major upgrade (which keeps getting delayed). So I have just been using the "slmgr -rearm" trick to keep reseting the timer. But this time I decided to just let the timer run out, since I heard about the changes in SP1.

Now when I started my computer today, I noticed that my background was black. I immediately knew what caused that, but that was the only thing that had changed. So I set my background back, and started working away. I use two monitors, and after surfing the net for a while, I noticed my background go black again. Then a little bubble appeared in my system tray telling me that I need to activate.

It's kind of silly. I know they were trying to make the experience of needing to activate less frustrating, but now you could use Windows Vista perfectly fine without activating (if you don't mind a black background).

Not really related per se, but you do know that unlike the old days, when you reg by phone it remembers your new hardware config for next time, right? So you only have to do it by phone after hardware changes, any re-installs between them will work without it.

From experience, I'm inclined to say that it does remember your new hardware config. I have a copy of Vista Business that I got from MSDNAA and had it on my old laptop for a while. This fall I got my new Vostro 1500. When I bought the new laptop, I cheaped out and got Vista Basic with the intention of switching my copy of Vista Business to the new laptop. The first time I installed Vista Business I had to call in my activation, but that's the only time I've had to call in and I've reinstalled probably half dozen times since then.



So much better than how it was with XP.

Well the Vista product keys on the stickers that the major OEMs use (like Dell and HP) are disabled. When the computer is built at the factory, they don't actually use the key on the sticker. They activate using the BIOS & license file technique. The key is provided if you ever need to reinstall Windows, but you have to call Microsoft to enable it.

That's really not necessary though, since you could activate a new installation yourself using the BIOS & license file technique.

Just think, if Vista was such a POS, you wouldn't have had to do that reinstall stuff already, especially half a dozen times!!
How or why would you have had to do that? I haven't reinstalled XP Pro that many times altogether since the day it came out on any of my 6 machines total!! That is just plain dumb!!

Does that count the year or two where "Linux kicked Window's ass and you'd never go back"? You do know that your fanboi attitude makes you a laughing stock, right?

Those of us who do this for a living know that XP was FAR, FAR worse than Vista as far as slowdowns over time go due to the file system and registry fragmenting itself to hell 30 seconds after install, especially in a multi-user environment. I would re-install XP at home every two months, because I could do it in less time than it would take to defrag. I have re-installed Vista three times in the first year, all because an app hosed something up (two out of three were because something irrepairably hosed up the DRM database, stupid Rhapsody). Vista does not lose performance over time like XP does, so I don't have to reinstall to get back to "fresh build" performance.

I am still using XP; and have made a mirror copy of it with Acronis TrueImage...
Whenever XP gets too slow, I just recover the mirror copy!
Costs me less than 2 minutes.


BTW I still think that XP is outdoing VISTA on every thinkable front...
imho

So, you, um, reinstall, then - just not with the original disk. Not exactly a counterpoint.

Sorry, for my bad English. It is not my native language...
I meant, I just REPLACE te too slow version with the created mirror copy.
This way, I am having the original install back, within two minutes.
It always works perfectly!

The fragmentation in Windows 2000/XP/Vista is due to how the file system is build. But NTFS is not true journal file system like ext3 and ext4 as an example.

More on NTFS fragmentation here.
Here is an article on ext3 and why there is less fragmentation in that file system and other unix file systems. It also compares it with Windows fragmentation.

Well last week I did another big hardware change. I finally changed out my Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe motherboard. To replace it, I got a MSI K9A2 Platinum. I was a bit hesitant about getting a MSI mobo, but I liked that it had all solid capacitors. I upgraded my memory from 2GB to 8GB, and I changed my video card from a 2900XT to a 3850. I know, I know, that's kind of a downgrade. But that 2900XT was a noisy, power hungry, unstable piece of junk that kept causing my computer to crash. I was glad to get rid of it. I got the 3850 instead of a 3870 because Sapphire offers a model of it with no cooling fan - just a huge heat sink. As for my processor, I changed from a 4800 to a... 4800. It's an AM2 instead of a 939. I did that because it was fairly cheap, and my thinking was that it will only be temporary for a few months until AMD releases a quality quad core. Hopefully this mobo and memory will last me for at least three years or so.

So what does all that have to do with Vista activation? Well since I changed out all that hardware, I did a new clean installation of Vista SP1 and now... My product key activates.

I have a OEM version of Vista buisness. ive been able to swap the activation from any latop running on the intel 945 chipset