xp licensing question... nothing illegal :)

[timbit]

i had xp home installed on my computer. i still have the disk and everything. unfortunatly, we had a power surge or something, and my mobo and vid card self destructed. i cannabalized the rest of the parts to upgrade my brother and sister's computer, which is running 2000 professional. now i'm building a new computer for myself. my question is wether or not i'm going to be able to use the xp cd and key that i used on my old (now dead and non existant) computer. it will still only be installed on one computer, just not the same one. does microsoft keep a database that matches a hardware config with a key or something? i don't think it's illegal for me to do this... but then again i don't know where the eula is for it (yeah, yeah, i skipped over it whenever i was reinstalling it, lol... stupid me.)

oh yeah, i got a great idea... just in case any microsoft execs are reading this ... i think you guys should have a "deactivation" thing on your website... so if something like this happens, i could delicense it on my old computer, and relicense it on my new one... i think it's a great idea... feel free to pay me for it . lol.

anyways, if anyone could shed some light on this for me, i'd really appreciate it.

[glc]

No problem. If it was last activated over 120 days ago, it should reactivate online. Otherwise, you will have to call Microsoft and they will give you a code when you explain the situation. The only exception is if your XP is a proprietary OEM version that was provided as a restore CD (Dell, HP, E-machine, etc.) - if this is what you have, it probably won't even install on a different motherboard.

[timbit]

awesome, thanks a lot... the sticker on my old case says that its an oem version, but the cd i got with it has pretty holograms all over it, so i'm thinking it's the real deal... and it wasn't a propriety machine either, just from a small local store, so i'm thinking i'm good to go. that's great. thanks again.