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Special thanks to Lithotech for all of the information and suggestions. I am very interested in hearing how I can "split my OS's between two systems" If you could provide a link or site that could give some info on how to do that would be great.

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YVW!

Whoops, missread your post, or forgot about the no disks part. I thought you had two COA's or installs, regular XP Pro and XP64. I figured you could use one COA on the AMD system and use the second COA on a future upgrade.

Not sure about the licensing you got, never heard of a once only install. Student packages are generally great, I've seen lots of them for various software with very fair terms of use and price. Microsofts Office Student and Teacher package is a good example, yet most of these types of licenses are not sold retail like the Office one is.

Never the less, if I understand correctly you do have two copies of XP installed on two different drives and setup/used on the single AMD system? It's safe to say that migrating one of them to a different computer would not be breaking any terms of use, only reinstalling it would but that isn't possible. Or maybe it is, and you just can't activate it twice?

I know what I would try, and have done it successfully before, however it more often fails than succeeds. Simply jack the drive into the new computer, cross your fingers and boot it up. If it bluescreens, then you have only one other thing to try (that I know of) and that is to boot in safe mode. If it gets to the desktop in safe mode, uninstall all the old mobo's drivers and try booting again. You could even uninstall all the drivers before you pull the drive from the old system, that would be better -- something I don't always have the option of.

It does work, sometimes. In fact, if the mobos are the same chipset, or even the same type of chipset, it usually always works. It might take a bit of massaging to get the OS back up and everything working, but it is worth the effort because all the apps and settings and personal files, everything, is still intact.

Failing that, you only need to deal with one COA, the one for the new system, down the road. Windows XP Home or Vista Home Premium is selling for just under or just over $100 these days, OEM copy but that's all anyone needs. The price is fair enough, compared to the gouge they charge for a retail copy. It hurts bad when you can build someone a very nice basic system for just over $200, and have to spend a full half more of that for the OS. But the system is useless without it, and most everyone needs a legit copy to get proper updates and not fear it phoning home. It's a pretty easy sell for my clients who don't already own a copy and are maybe upgrading from Win98/95/ME -- yes, I get clients that are still using PIII's and even PIIs. LOL, they are old folks, get 10+ years out of a system.

Maybe someone could verify, but I believe you can download a Windows XP installer disk, which will run on a 30 day trial that by the end of the 30 days you need to activate it with a valid key, which you can purchase and enter in at that time. Simply download the installer, burn it to disk, run it on a spare (DOH! New...) hard drive and try to activate it with the key that your currently using. This will verify whether your license will work or not. If it doesn't, fine, you can pick up a copy later. If it does, great!

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