Randy sent me this Art, so I'm signing it Randy. I'm sure he won't mind, he already mentioned his words are open, so with that in mind, here's his post:

I’ve been through less harrowing experiences with Windows. The Activation feature is certainly a P-I_T-A. The operating system, once installed, grabs serial number and other data from components, combining them together into a “hash-code” which binds the activation to the hardware.

There are some ten hardware features that combine in the hash-code, and at any given time, MS’s activation database checks any six of them. This makes it possible to replace hardware components without reactivation, but if one were to transfer the license to a near-completely new configuration, then the OS must repeat the activation process.

And per the author’s final remark about VISTA, this is the reason that I would “get ahead” of hardware acquisition by acquiring a spare motherboard, processor, memory and disks. I can then take my damn time deciding if – how – and when we want to migrate to VISTA. In the meantime, everything in the house is stellar, all the Windows Event Logs are “in the Blue” with no red or yellow errors or warnings, and for the time being – I’m happier’n-a-pig-in-shit.

Azstrummer has, in a very short time, gone through a good deal of the learning (and confusion) process that I was able to spread out over a longer period of time, in more palatable doses. I call it “Hell in Cyber-space.”