That's what I'm wondering too. If I upgrade my computer, and reinstall Vista, will that count against the transfer limit?
I think the answer is - yes !!
That's the question that came to mind for me. We have 3 machines in our home running Win XP (two Desktops and a Notebook). I generally reformat the hard drives on all 3 machines about once a year.
If Vista turns out to be too restrictive for reformating, etc, then after we run the wheels off these 3 machines, maybe we'll switch to Mac. They are more expensive machines, but guess I'll have to consider it.
I read the talk about Linux, and I am moderately geeky -- doing my own computer maintenance and so on, but I know and understand nothing about Linux. A few questions come to mind: How geeky does one have to be to learn to use Linux? Do you buy or build your own machine for it, and where do you get the software? Is it hard to learn to use? Can you use Windows Office, Quicken, Adobe Photoshop, Palm Desktop software, browse the Internet, .. and other commonly used software on Linux-based machines (for example, my wife takes college courses part time and must use Power Point)? And of course, I presume you can browse the Internet using Linux, download, etc.?
And just how many times are you going to keep upgrading the hardware on the same computer? At some point its just cheaper to buy a new computer.
Isn't this already the case?
Windows XP reinstalls require product activation...this typically amounts to trying to activate on-line (which fails), then waiting in queue before talking to some rep to explain why you need to re-activate, and then typing in a new activation code.