I am very surprised that this worked. One was a gateway from 2007, it worked fine, was a little slow but still workable. Then the CPU failed and we didn't have money for a new one. My dad found an eMachines and an old dell optiplex in the garbage, I put the PSU from the optiplex in the eMachines and it worked fine, but the eMachines still had the password on it from the older machine. After getting past that, the hard drive failed, but I still had the hard drive from the 2007 computer. I put it in, and then used the recovery partition to reinstall Windows Vista.
It works great, but after a few uses of Windows Update it keeps asking us to Activate it. This screen pops up for 10 seconds, and then lets us click Activate Later. I'm worried that it will eventually block us entirely. I put in the Product Key from the side of the 2007 computer, which is the machine the copy is licensed to, it did not recognize it. The Windows Validation tool says that it's not genuine. I know that you technically are not allowed to take this copy of Windows to other machines, that the OEM license only applies to the original equipment. But it is the original hard drive.
Any advice? Or should I just ignore it? Those OEM licenses are completely ridiculous, I should be able to install that copy of Windows as many times as I want as long as there are no other active copies. Granted, I did buy and use the OEM version for the computer I built, but I am the Original Equipment Manufacturer and I don't need customer service.
It works great, but after a few uses of Windows Update it keeps asking us to Activate it. This screen pops up for 10 seconds, and then lets us click Activate Later. I'm worried that it will eventually block us entirely. I put in the Product Key from the side of the 2007 computer, which is the machine the copy is licensed to, it did not recognize it. The Windows Validation tool says that it's not genuine. I know that you technically are not allowed to take this copy of Windows to other machines, that the OEM license only applies to the original equipment. But it is the original hard drive.
Any advice? Or should I just ignore it? Those OEM licenses are completely ridiculous, I should be able to install that copy of Windows as many times as I want as long as there are no other active copies. Granted, I did buy and use the OEM version for the computer I built, but I am the Original Equipment Manufacturer and I don't need customer service.