Broken laptop, can install that software in to another pc?

Question

Ok, so my laptop broke and I want to use that software (broken laptop´s) in another computer (pc). don't want to run it twice but only on the pc. Lost the discs but got the genuine-legal serial-product number underneath of laptop? Microsoft´s website says i can download the software, but first I have to purchase it?, any ideas?? thx people...btw, its windows vista in the laptop and xp currently on pc..

Answer 1

if you can find the same laptop it's just a case of swapping the hard drives, or you can try transplanting the hard drive into a different laptop, and running a repair over the o/s to see if it picks up the new drivers

Answer 2

You're out of luck.  Vista is tied to hardware and can't be transferred to another computer.  When Vista was installed on the laptop, it connected to the MS servers and registered its serial number as well as information on your hardware, like CPU, hard drive and motherboard serial number.  If you try to use that same key on another machine, it will connect to the MS servers, see that they key has already been used, check to see if the hardware matches, then refuse to authenticate when there's a mismatch.  You have to buy a second key for the desktop.