Posted by: TopWargamer
But I didn't know that you could get Windows reactivated by contacting Microsoft. I'll keep that handy. Often times you won't even need to do anything to get it reactivated. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but Microsoft does allow X amount of installs in Y amount of time on the same key (so long as there are not two machines running with the same key at any given time) because they know people like to do fresh installs every so often.
I worked in one of the IT labs of my university when I was going to school, and we had to flash a clean install of XP to each machine at the beginning of every semester (fall, spring, summer - so three times a year). The university had a volume license, which made things easier, but each computer had its own unique key. We only had to call support once out of the two years that I worked there to get Microsoft's manual activation.