Ultimate installation to a second laptop

Hi all hope you can help. I recently purchased Vista Ultimate and installed
it onto an older laptop and all worked fine and dandy.I have since sold that
laptop and purchased a new one and am now installed Vista Ultimate one this
one using the same discs that I purchased originally.

I am now having problems activating windows by using the same disc and
product key and when it is checked Miscosoft are telling me that the product
key has already been activated and I should purchase a new one - It is
thinking I guess that the copy disc I have is a fraud copy - which it is not
- its the real copy I purchased for my original (and now sold) laptop. Any
suggestions would be grateful?

Hi Peter,

Did you format the hard drive on the laptop you sold, or put another
operating
system on it? If not, whoever owns that laptop owns the Vista on it, and
you
should really give them the disks. If you did make sure it didn't have
Vista on
it, you can call MS, explain the situation, and get activated over the
phone. Note
however, it will be hard to fake, since if the person who owns the laptop
ever
does an update, MS will know there are two computers using the same version
of Vista. The Genuine Windows stuff will surely catch two people using the
same
copy.

-- Larry Maturo


"Peter g" <Peter g@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1B7B8F4F-FDAA-4C4D-8D52-4F25F19C979F@microsoft.com...
> Hi all hope you can help. I recently purchased Vista Ultimate and
> installed
> it onto an older laptop and all worked fine and dandy.I have since sold
> that
> laptop and purchased a new one and am now installed Vista Ultimate one
> this
> one using the same discs that I purchased originally.
>
> I am now having problems activating windows by using the same disc and
> product key and when it is checked Miscosoft are telling me that the
> product
> key has already been activated and I should purchase a new one - It is
> thinking I guess that the copy disc I have is a fraud copy - which it is
> not
> - its the real copy I purchased for my original (and now sold) laptop.
> Any
> suggestions would be grateful?

As per Vista's Help & Support section:
"You cannot use Windows on more computers than the Microsoft Software
License Terms allow. Usually the license terms allow one copy of Windows to
be used on each computer. To use the same copy of Windows on another
computer, you must uninstall Windows on the first computer before installing
it on the second one. You will need to activate Windows again as part of
installing it on the second computer. During installation, enter the product
key that came with your copy of Windows. If automatic activation fails,
follow the screens that walk you through activating Windows by phone. You
will have 30 days to activate your copy of Windows."

So the phone option is the one you want. I trust that you wiped the hard
drive clean on the machine you sold. If you sold it with Vista intact, then
you sold your Vista along with it, and you might as well send the DVD to the
buyer as his/her backup.

--
Peter
Toronto, Canada
XP Pro SP2 x 2 + Vista Ultimate Triple Boot
P4 dual HT @ 3.0ghz, 4gb DDR, 700gb HDD
"Peter g" <Peter g@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:1B7B8F4F-FDAA-4C4D-8D52-4F25F19C979F@microsoft.com...
> Hi all hope you can help. I recently purchased Vista Ultimate and
> installed
> it onto an older laptop and all worked fine and dandy.I have since sold
> that
> laptop and purchased a new one and am now installed Vista Ultimate one
> this
> one using the same discs that I purchased originally.
>
> I am now having problems activating windows by using the same disc and
> product key and when it is checked Miscosoft are telling me that the
> product
> key has already been activated and I should purchase a new one - It is
> thinking I guess that the copy disc I have is a fraud copy - which it is
> not
> - its the real copy I purchased for my original (and now sold) laptop.
> Any
> suggestions would be grateful?