>>>This is Windows XP you are talking about? You were told that you can only install it on the original machine, and that is it? That is incorrect. You can install it on one machine at a time if it is not an OEM version, but it doesn't have to be limited to the original PC.
>>>
>>>Am I understanding you correctly?
>>
>>You are and that's what she told me. I told her the situation and she basically said too bad. Her English sucked, but she made it clear that was the policy. I hate dealing with MS anyway. It's worth the $100 bucks not to have to talk with them anymore. Oh yeah, she did say I could upgrade to Vista. I told her it was my policy to not do that for another 6 months... <g>

It is my policy to own what I bought... so (the third installment of) my Vista history, as a matter of policy, happened a few days ago, when I sandblasted my laptop disk, and installed Ubuntu 7.04 (64 bit) over the Vista (32 bit Home Something), and then installed my old XP under QEMU as a virtual machine. It doesn't really fly, but then it does run Fox decently, and that's all I need windowses for. I also don't have to care about firewalling, viruses and other funny business, the host machine does that so much better.

The cultural shock was a much greater issue, though. I've looked around a lot, and guess what, nobody tried to sell anything to me! The noise is gone... feels like a strange land, but somehow feels more like home.