i got my laptop from a friend who bought it from a store in the Philippines,
with OEM XP Home Premium. Perhaps the BIOS change allowed Vista to install
the correct drivers for several drivers that make them seem like new hardware.

"Synapse Syndrome" wrote:
[color=blue]
> "racesurg" <racesurg@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:93625B99-BCF4-40F6-8C47-4BAC3198AA38@microsoft.com...[color=green]
> >I have an MSI S420 Core2Duo 1.83Ghz laptop w/ 1gig DDR2, 80gig SATA HDD,
> >ATI
> > Radeon Xpress 200M, and originally came w/ XP Home Premium. I updated it
> > to
> > Vista Ultimate and activated it online, only to find out that I would
> > trouble
> > with the Radeon and the SATA HDD drivers. MSI Tech Support advised me to
> > update my BIOS by flashing with newer one on their site so I did. Indeed
> > the
> > BIOS update corrected my driver problems, and I was also able to update
> > drivers thru Windows update. But later I was surprised to receive a notice
> > that I have to reactivate Windows because my "hardware has changed". I
> > tried
> > reactivating online and was really troubled when a window appeared telling
> > me
> > that my product key is already in use. Whoa! What's the best way to
> > proceed
> > with this problem. I certainly do not want to spend another small fortune
> > for
> > a new product key. Thanks.[/color]
>
> Interesting. Where did you get your computer from?
>
> ss.
>
>
>[/color]