RE: Windows XP upgrade question

["Wills, Mike N. (TC)" <MNWills@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

One of the main things ... the whole OS is spyware.  By default, XP will
report a lot of the things you do to MicroSoft.  It can be turned off, but
you have to know how.

>>>No offense, Ken, but you are obviously mis-informed. There is no
reporting to M$ for information other than what you send (bug reports and
registration) This has been verified by many magazines and security experts.
The "secret key" is just a string of numbers and letters derived from
various hardware serial numbers, it cannot mean anything to M$.

Also, if you make significant hardware changes, the OS will decide that you
have installed it on a new system, requiring you to contact MicroSoft and
persuade them that it's still on the same system and to give you a new
license key.  Otherwise, after some period of time, the OS will stop
working.

>>> Yes you can change hardware. I haven't tried it yet, but I had XP
installed on my laptop (took it off for instability in the video card
driver) and now I plan on putting it on my desktop. I want to see if I have
to call M$ or not. What M$ has done is you can make significant hardware
changes every 180 days. The major key is your network card. I don't remember
the exact number of changes you can make but IIRC you could replace MOBO,
Proc, RAM, Sound, video, and hard drive and NOT have a problem. To me that
sounds like a complete upgrade.