Re: [PcTech] choosing an OS and getting comfy with a new pc

[Douglas Handy <dhandy1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Buck,

>I have heard that XP can actually disable itself if you make significant 
>changes to the PC, like adding a big hard drive and changing the CPU.

I had my motherboard and video cards (I run triple monitors) taken out by an
electrical storm a couple of weeks ago.  My particular model of motherboard was
no longer available so had to upgrade it to a newer version from the same manf.

XP Pro is touchy about those things, and required a "repair installation" from
the XP setup CD in order to install the proper drivers etc.  Then it mandated a
new activation code, and didn't even give the usual 30 days grace.  Your choices
were to activate now or shut down.  I couldn't activate over the web because the
network driver was not installed yet, so I had to call on the phone.

Then Sunday I re-installed some other components I had not yet added back into
my system.  It is giving me 3 days to activate again!  I think this will be the
fifth activation I've had to do on this machine since moving to XP Pro.  All due
to hardware changes.

I think the process is too touchy myself...

Doug