Will I have to reactivate Vista?

[nerdychick]

For Valentines' Day, I'm planning on upgrading my husband's RAM on his 2007 HP Paviliion. He currently has 2 sticks of 512mb at 267mhz. His board can support up to 4 GB of 533mhz, but since he is running Vista 32-bit, he wouldn't be able to utilize more than 2GB, so my plan is to get him two sticks of 1GB RAM @ 533mhz. Will Vista want a reactivation if I do this?

Also, he's currently running a single core AMD Athlon 64 2.4 3800+ CPU. I'd like to upgrade him to the max that his motherboard can handle which is an AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ at 2.4 or higher.

If I change out both his RAM and CPU, will Vista Home Premium want a reactivation, even if the HDD stays the same?

P.S. If I change out both, should I do it simultaneously or should I install the RAM then boot, and afterwards install the CPU and boot? Thanks!

 

[ChilledGrease]

No, you don't have to reactivate Vista for RAM and CPU changes, and you should do it simultaneously. But good god, you poor devil, I almost feel like giving you Windows 7. Do yourself a favor and get rid of that abomination of an OS.

 

[JRock247]

I agree, get rid of Vista, IT SUCKS BADLY! I would also advise perhaps upgrading the CPU cooler if your planning on moving to a Dual Core CPU as the temps will be higher. Oh and I would also only do one upgrade at a time, install the RAM then check and ensure the machine boots OK, then install the CPU, otherwise, if the machine doesn't boot, you won't know which bit of hardware is to blame!

 

[popatim]

Vista is fine once its fully updated and you get used to it.

you're a very thoughtful Wife to do this for him!

 

[nerdychick]

Vista is fine once its fully updated and you get used to it.

you're a very thoughtful Wife to do this for him!

It's mainly to hold us over while I build our super-duper(to us) family gaming pc. And Vista came with his PC(he got it before we started dating). My computer had been an XP, until some vital components died.

No, you don't have to reactivate Vista for RAM and CPU changes, and you should do it simultaneously. But good god, you poor devil, I almost feel like giving you Windows 7. Do yourself a favor and get rid of that abomination of an OS.

And I will consider the upgrade to Win7, but it means I'll have to back-up all of our music, documents, and pictures though, which is why I wanted to hold off.

I agree, get rid of Vista, IT SUCKS BADLY! I would also advise perhaps upgrading the CPU cooler if your planning on moving to a Dual Core CPU as the temps will be higher. Oh and I would also only do one upgrade at a time, install the RAM then check and ensure the machine boots OK, then install the CPU, otherwise, if the machine doesn't boot, you won't know which bit of hardware is to blame!

Thanks for the tip about the heatsink. And I think you're probably right about installing one at a time. If the memory is bad, I won't know it if the cpu ends up being bad too.

 

[nerdychick]

Best answer selected by nerdychick.