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MattSkellington

How many times can Windows Vista be installed?

I re-installed Windows Vista in my computer twice already because of virus problems. Is there a limit to how many times I can re-install it?
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peter

As long as you don't make any major hardware changes to the machine you can reinstall Windows as many times as you want.
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spiri

But anyway you should be able to call Microsoft and get it activated if it refuses to do it online. Isn't that correct? I think I've done that at several occasions
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peterto

If you have an OEM version, it's tied to the hardware, so major changes to the hardware (motherboard mainly) would invalidate the OEM key. If you have a retail license, then it's transferable to different hardware and you're legally able to activate it as many times as you want, but you can only have one active installation.

But as Peter has said, Microsoft might not be very strict on this and they haven't really taken a hardline on this and will probably reactivate you're OEM key if you say nice things to them.
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NotHotWater

Over 9000 times.
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jerquiaga

IIRC, there is also some magic number at which Microsoft will make you call in to activate, though I can't remember what the number was.
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