Well, the point is that, in my understanding, Windows builds a "profile" of the machine that the OS is installed on and sends that to MS along with the activation. If an attempt is made to activate the OS later with a different hardware "profile" the activation is rejected since the whole purpose of activation is to keep people from installing the OS on multiple computers. Yes-no?

>How is that different? Are you saying that because you installed Pro over Home on one box that Home is not available to install on another? I had XP on both boxes before I wiped out the old one. Needed to make sure everything worked right first. What if you had first intalled Home on both boxes then upgraded one of them to Pro? Not understanding the difference about hardware, etc.
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>>>Bill,
>>>
>>>I bought a new machine to replace one that had XP Pro on it and just installed XP Pro on the new machine with no problem. The new one definately had different hardware. I thought the deal was that you got like 10 activations and that was it, but maybe I just got lucky?
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>>Hi Jay,
>>
>>Yes, I activated my newly installed WinXP Pro also no problem. The issue is to then install the original XP Home on another box and activate it. I.e. XP home was originally installed on box #1 and activated according to that box's hardware configuration. WinXP Pro was subsequently installed on box #1 and activated. Since winXP Home is no longer on box #1, it should be eligible to install on another box ( box #2 ) with a different hardware configuration. The issue is to install the original XP Home on a box (box #2) and activate it that has a different hardware configuration than the box (box #1) it was originally installed on.
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>>Bill