Reinstalling Vista

kryan1

Hi there, quick question, i an formatting my harddrive and i will be reinstalling vista. my question when i register the license again, will it come up saying this license is already in use. So before i do format the drive, do i need to deactivate the license some how and how?

Many thanks

Kevin

Mac daddy

if this is the first time you are reinstalling it won't throw up a already in use.
Only times i have seen that is reinstalling several times per week, just a matter of contacting Ms with your license key.

Overheal

Im pretty sure the activation program does some communicating with your hardware setup. with a retail key i dont know but with an OEM definitely - it will make a scan of your hardware to verify its still the same machine. no fuss really. just type in the key from your sticker and youre sorted. With retail I think it still does just for a matter of scrutiny but as the above says, wont throw up any red flags at microsoft unless youre re-activating your license on a frequent basis, likely on multiple pcs (as ID'd by the hardware scan)

on a more file backup note, make sure to manually grab all your My Documents: the Green Folders you see in there are all just SHORTCUTS and not the actual directories - I dont know why they did it that way but they did. During one reformat I just dragged a green folder to my external assuming it carried over my pictures - but it didnt. and i got the 1kb shortcut instead. I missed it because I was copying over so much at once i didnt see the progress bar only took 2 seconds for that drop >_>