XP activation

Hello Geeks
I finally seem to be running XP without a hitch with a 533 Celeron Processor.
I upgraded to 256 RAM (the most allowed). I changed the PS2 mouse to a serial mouse and changed the FAT32 file system to NTFS. Anyway when I upgrade how do I install the XP onto another HDD. How does that work? Can I activate the XP again after I upgrade to a different system if it was the same copy of XP? Am I stuck with this copy of XP on this computer?
Is it a one time deal?
Thanks

 

No it's not a 1 time deal. You will have to activate it over the phone. This is such a grey area though. Microsoft haven't said anything officially about installing XP on more than one system.
They even ask you now when you activate it "have you installed this on any other machines"? You simply have to reply "no".

 

Here at work I support 100's of XP home desktops and they are running old Maxtor drives - which fail with great regularity so I call tell you from my experience you can reload XP about three times before callin Microsoft.
But it is one license per machine.. be honest.

 

To be more specific, every 120 days, the MS activation database gets purged.

So if you are denied internet activation, it will work again in 120 days from the last activation.