Changing product key.

Stivino

Stivino

Joined
11 Oct 2006
Messages
5,641
Reaction score
1,270
Location
Edinburgh
Country
United Kingdom
I have a hard drive from a PC that went pear shaped on me, it as Vista on it. I've put it into another PC that had a kaput hard drive. Will it be OK to just change the product key in the control panel or, will I need to do something else?
 
why do you need to change it,the product is on the hard drive,as you have moved it to another machine,the hard drive contains all the info.
i wont tell if you dont.
 
It's just that the other machine has a different code on it and I wondered if I'd have to link that hard drive to that machine in some way.
 
Legally yes you should use the license key of the PC the disk is in, in practice if you are not intending to re-use the old machine and sell it on then I wouldn't bother. If however you do intend to replace the disk in the other machine and use the OEM key on the side of the computer then you need to change it on the other one otherwise you may get issues.

There should be no problem changing it unless the installed version is different on each machine, i.e. one machine uses an OEM copy of windows and another use a corporate volume or retail type install.

Graham
 
You can't remove a hard drive from one pc and put it into a different spec pc. The registry wont work. It wont boot.

Additionally from xp onwards the OS makes a note of the MOBO,etc, serial number and throws a wobbly if you change too many components in the same pc.

Technically an OEM licence is tied to the pc is was shipped with. On a reinstall they might look for the brand of pc in the registry.

You can change the serial in a number of ways

http://www.mydigitallife.info/2007/01/28/how-to-change-windows-vista-product-key/




Given that vista is crap why not install XP and upgrade to Windows & pro for £39

http://www.software4students.co.uk/default.aspx

Thats a saving of £180 if you have a kid...
 
I already have removed one hard drive from one PC and popped it in the other, it booted perfectly. Both PC's had Vista, I've not changed the number yet as not had the PC on since my last post. I'll see how it goes.
 
I stand corrected...

So you removed the drive from pc1 and then removed the drive from pc2 and put the pc1 drive in and it worked?
 
Fair enough.

Sorry I though that it shouldn't have worked.

I can only guess that all of the required drivers were in Vista already.

Incidentally is everything showing as ok in device manager?

Thanks
 
I've not had that computer on for a week now but when I do, I'll have a look in the device manager.
 
From the days of XP I had been led to believe that swapping drives would not work, and thus I have never tried it, and assumed incorrectly that it was also the case with Vista and W7.

Does that mean that the old XP rule of needing to re-validate the OS after changing 3 significant bits of hardware does not apply to vista and W7
 
opps said:
From the days of XP I had been led to believe that swapping drives would not work, and thus I have never tried it, and assumed incorrectly that it was also the case with Vista and W7.

Does that mean that the old XP rule of needing to re-validate the OS after changing 3 significant bits of hardware does not apply to vista and W7
Click to expand...


This is a case of "suck and see"

It will either blue screen or work fine, then requiring drivers for video sound etc.....

Ive had a lot more cases were it worked than any that didnt
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top