"Jon Elson" wrote in message
...
Karl Townsend wrote:

I'm looking for a new motherboard and haven't really kept up with
computer technology for several years now.

If I can re-use the CPU, I will save the cost of this part PLUS
greedy
greedy M$oft won't make me pay for ANOTHER win 7 OS disk.
I buy used Dell Optiplex and such machines from their
industrial-grade
line (not the consumer-grade stuff). Looking at them, I sure can't
tell the difference, except maybe the sheet metal work is a bit
lighter
on the consumer models. But, their commercial desktops are just
amazingly
robust. I recently replaced my main desktop, an Optiplex GX400
which
** I ** had been using for TWELVE years after buying it used. My
daughter
is now using it.

If you swap the disk drive into the new machine, M$ should only
require
a re-registration of the new hardware (if that). You can also clone
the old hard drive to a brand-new SSD.
...........
Jon

A Windows C: drive boots in a different machine but loudly and
frequently warns you that it failed validation, and becomes harder and
harder to use. It lasted long enough to prove that the stubborn
problem I was chasing was a driver instead of the hardware.

I've triggered the validation warning by uninstalling (not removing)
the hardware of a Broadcom Trusted Platform Module security add-on
without any other changes. This is the type of problem that made me
maintain a master C: drive for each computer, which I clone to other
"sandbox" drives to use. Cloning or restoring a whole partition's
backup is a bulletproof System Restore but it won't transfer a
validated OS installation to other hardware without personal
absolution of your sin from M$. Find something soft to kneel on before
calling them.

The master drive can be the small original that came with the used
computer if it passes SMART checks etc. The one for this laptop is a
large drive in a bootable CD-bay caddy that also holds my archived
eBooks and downloads in a second partition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Genuine_Advantage
See "Data collected".
AFAIK it allows individual, infrequent changes to the objects it
surveys. Frequently swapping hard drives, all descended from the
master, has never bothered mine.

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