iTunes users: music/video authorization

I don't have a Mac but I figured this might be the best place to get an iTunes question answered.

I first downloaded iTunes January 14th 2007 (according to my purchase history) on a desktop I used to use. Because I like to tinker I end up frequently re-installing Windows so I keep my music/videos on a separate partition. Since I rarely used iTunes after I downloaded those first couple videos (Heroes episodes) I probably don't even have iTunes installed on that computer anymore because of one of the many re-installs. That computer is also in a location where it is impossible to connect it to the internet to de-activate it. I don't even know if you can de-activate it after you've re-installed Windows...

Anyways, I'm using iTunes again for music now. I would like to somehow get that computer de-authorized and have this be the only computer that is authorized and maybe transfer the Heroes episodes to this computer. Is this even possible? Is it worth taking the desktop somewhere that I can connect to the internet, install iTunes and de-activate it? From what I've read I'm guessing it doesn't work that way. I'm guessing I have to wait till I've activated five computers and then de-activate all of them from one computer. I'll be re-installing Windows again here soon when SP3 comes out for Windows XP and I could install it on my Vista partition as well and activate that...then I could deactivate all of them. After I do that I guess I'll just have to be more careful about de-activating before I do anything serious to Windows. Would that work? Thanks for the help.

 

If you re-installed Windows, then that activation of iTunes is forever gone and can't be de-activated, at least from our side of things. My suggestion is the best way to "start clean again" is to start a new iTunes account, but you won't be able to view those Heroes videos unless you keep the computer also authorized for the old account from which the videos were purchased under.

You can thank record companies and DRM for that .

 

Hmmm....based on my understanding I was almost sure that I would be able to continue "forgetting" to deactivate my iTunes installation when I reinstalled Windows. When I got up to five activations I thought I would have the option of deactivating all the other computers (which really don't exist because they were just different Windows installations on the same machine). I would then have my account all cleared of activations and I could activate the one computer that I use now...but perhaps I'm missing something....

 

Oh, you have the ability to do that? I never realized!

I've never reached 5 activations, so I never realized you could clear all activations then. If so, just max it out and clear them!

 

Yeah, that's what I'm really hoping will happen. They limit it to once a year to prevent abuse I guess...

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=93014

 

I've stripped the DRM off all of my iTunes music store songs, so it doesn't matter that i've wasted two authorizations with reformats.