You will not have to keep paying
THE VOLE has told
Ars Technica that its licence for Vista is friendlier to hardware changes than Windows XP.
The software behemoth had come under stinging criticism because its terms and conditions for Vista imply that they punters are only allowed one serious hardware change before the operating system demands you buy a new copy of the software.
A tired spokesVole told
Ars that, in practice, Vista is a lot happier to allow changes than Windows XP and what is considered a change in the old days will not be identified as one now.
The spokesVole said that Vista was "more flexible" and that re-activations caused by minor changes to a PC are likely to be less common.
The reason for this, apparently, is that Microsoft's Vista uses an "undisclosed algorithm" to track changes before deciding that the operating system is sitting in a different computer.
Ars T seems to think that while Vole is sitting on a one re-activation per machine policy, there is some truth to rumours that it has a safety net in place if too many punters go incandescent and get "up in arms".
So details will stay "secret" and only known to a select handful, much in the same way as happened in the case of Windows XP.
For those memories longer than a goldfish, there were similar concerns about how Windows XP wouldn't allow hardware upgrades. Microsoft certainly didn't make things easy and re-activation could involve a call to a call centre and have to listen to someone reel out loads of numbers and have explanations demanded. More
at Ars.