Upgrading motherboard on Vista

[bob36]

I'm about to change my DFI Lanparty DK 790FX motherboard for an ASUS M3A79T on windows a Vista system.

I've heard many conflicting accounts of what you have to do. This is the second time I've changed motherboard with this install of Vista. The first time, it simply asked me to re-enter the license key and I was away, no re-install or anything.

I've read that the second time you do it is more difficult and may require phoning microsoft. Has anyone done this before and know exactly how it works? The copy of Vista is Home Premium 64bit OEM, purchased from Nova about a year ago.

(I have Windows 7 installed on another partition of the HDD so if Vista stops letting me in, I'm hoping Windows 7 will be fine and I can still access all my stuff!)

[cje]

I was under the impression that you couldn't swap motherboards, only to an exact one like you had before, and even that may cause problems.

Since the copy is OEM, the license that you've agreed to is that you built the system for a customer. So if you do need to phone them, remember to say that a customer needed to upgrade his motherboard, and that you are swapping it out for them.

Otherwise, I have no idea. From what I've heard seems that everyone's milage varies. My windows copy had to be e activated after I initially overclocked my processor as it though I put a new one in. Stupid windows :).

I swapped a board under windows XP, but that was an identical board, and it didn't say anything.

But since you are changing the mobo, you would have to re-install vista I think. And then it might fail to re-activate, which would require you to phone MS.

[Mungo]

As cje said.
You are only meant to install an OEM copy of an OS on one machine (and MS counts a new Motherboard as a new machine), but you can just phone them, get some international call centre, tell them your hard drive did a poo, and that you had to reinstall. My friend managed to get several more installs on my OEM disk. They really have no idea :rolleyes:

As you are installing a new mobo, unless you are confident you can get rid of all old drivers, a clean install is recommended, stop old drivers conflicting :)

[bob36]

Thats the weird thing, I heard about the issue with OEM license the first time I changed motherboard. but that time, it literally just asked for the license key again and reactivated itself which was nice, it did all the driver reinstallation by itself. I think it may be because the license was a generic OEM and not tied to a specific manufacturer like Dell or something.

I'll be doing the swap tomorrow and will let you know how it goes.

[Baggpuss]

Your gonna have to reinstall but the key should be fine, the one im usings been through about 3 motherboards and various hardware combinations and is infact a 32bit oem key.

[UKGouki]

Your gonna have to reinstall but the key should be fine, the one im usings been through about 3 motherboards and various hardware combinations and is infact a 32bit oem key.

same my oem 32bit home premium i had my old mobo die i upgraded from a 650i to my 750i and had no issue on the reinstall of the os my xp oem ive reinstalled over 20x and never had a problem its automaticly reactivated itself using the online/internet connection way of doing it ive also phoned the 0800 number once before when i had a weired issue and it asked to reactivate after service pack update just gave them the activation code and i was away :D

[bob36]

Well its up and running with the new motherboard. The weirdest thing is, on first boot up it just went straight through like nothing had changed.

Didn't even ask for the license code again. It simply booted up, automatically found and installed all the relevant drivers and I'm using it right now. Very strange. I'll see if any issues surface as I use it.