Unfortunately there's no way to remove activation from a machine, once
Windows (or Office) are installed. Apparently this was intended to be a
facility when activation was first introduced in XP, but the dev guys ran
out of time and decided they'd ship XP without it, and include
"de-activation" in the next release. But by the time Vista came around, the
forces within Microsoft advocating militant, brutal bonding of software to
hardware had the upper hand, and there was no intention of allowing Windows
to be "de-activated" to be moved to another machine. So now it's not
available, on purpose.
The algorithm which detects whether Windows is running on a new machine is
complex, and completely non-public. It's almost impossible to predict
exactly what will happen. But you'll hit one of 2 scenarios:
1) Windows will accept the hardware change as "minor" and assume you're
still running on the same machine. You can re-activate over the Internet,
with no hassle or human interaction required.
2) Windows will interpret the hardware change as "major" and assume you're
running on a different machine. Vista will not activate over the Internet,
you will get a message telling you to ring a phone number. Vista will
continue to work normally for 30 days, but you must ring and get an
activation code over the phone within that time.
Scenario (2) is a minor hassle but it shouldn't block you from upgrading
your motherboard. Once you get onto a human you just explain very briefly
what's happened and they'll give you an activation code. There's no big
interrogation, or anything. I guess if you ring several times a day for a
few days in a row, they'd start to get suspicious.
I've had less expereince with Office activation but as far as I know, it's
pretty similar - the grace period before you activate is slightly less, 25
days.
Hope it helps, good luck with the upgrade.
Andrew
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