"Michael Chare" wrote in message
...
On 19/09/2014 21:15, Tim Lamb wrote:
Right, if you have all finished stressing about Scotland.... back to my
computer problems.

As has been pointed out, Towers with Windows 7/32bit are readily
available on the refurbished market.

What problems am I likely to run into attempting to transfer software
for which I do not have installation discs. Clonezilla was suggested.

Also, will such m/cs have licensed software such that MS will continue
upgrading/fixing?

Kindly bear in mind my lack of geekyness:-)

Are you trying to transfer the license from a machine that you have now or
from one that you are buying?

A full retail license that you buy by itself on DVDs is normally
transferable to a different computer. You might have to do a tedious
telephone activation.

This machine has just been rebuilt with a different motherboard, processor,
memory and graphics card. Windows got a bit upset and started throwing up
nasty little messages about having 3 days to revalidate it. I did follow one
of these messages, and clicked on the activate online button, but it
immediately responded by saying that it couldn't find a modem ... WTF ? So I
abandoned it, as I didn't want to do the tedious telephone re-activation at
the time, and I wasn't convinced that it *really* needed doing as the
machine was working just fine, and the messages were brief and then just
went away. A couple of days later, the screen background went black, and I
now had a new and permanent message telling me that I now had zero days
before they were going to come round and cut my legs off for not
revalidating ...

So I sighed and followed the message again to the validate online button.
This time when I clicked it, it came straight back and said "validating",
and in a few seconds said "ok, all done" ...

The background stayed black, mind. To restore that, I had to right click my
desktop, and turn the theme back on.

Arfa



A license that is sold with a new computer is normally not transferable.
You might be able be able to argue that re-registration is necessary
because some part has failed.

A Windows 8 license is a bit more flexible.


--
Michael Chare