Is it legal?

Hi, I have the d630 with vista business os & driver dvd-s. Now, from what i heard, business key is also a win xp pro key. I want to use winXP instead of that crappy-featured vista, although I only have the vista cd-s. Is it legal to ask someone to upload me the Dells winXP OS & driver dvd-s? If so, can someone do it?

 

everything is legal in this illegal world so go ahead and download it, after searching u might find it very easily

 

The XP drivers are available from the Dell website, aren't they?

 

yeah, maybe they are, but drivers cd automaticly assisted me by saying what drivers I need from that cd. But still where to get dell win xp?

 

any WinXP cd will do
doesn't have to be a Dell one

 

Can't install from any winXP cd - setup says that HDD can't be found. And doesn't Dell winXP cd come with some dell software or drivers?

 

That is because the XP CD you are using doesn’t have SATA drivers to recognize your HDD. Any non DELL CD will work as long as you provide the drivers. Download and burn them on to a CD from support.dell.com (or you can slipstream directly in to the XP installation but that will need some work , google for it to find out how). Run XP setup and Press F6 when you see the message “ Press F6 if you need to install a third party SCSI or Raid driver…” then put in the driver CD and point to it.

 

i doubt a Dell XP CD has the required drivers splistreamed into it
best is to use the solution provided by Phoenix, with the drivers on a seperate CD

 

My understanding was that you had to call up Microsoft and ask them to supply you with a XP Pro key, given you had a Vista Business one.
Someone, in another forum, told me I should also give them the old XP key and that from then on the old XP should never be used on another machine because its key will be tied to the new machine (updates will be impossible on the old machine).

Is this an urban legend?

Please let me know how it worked out for you.
Right now I am forced to use Vista Business, since I don't have the time to reconfigure and reinstall everything on my Vostro. But I will jump onto the X wagon ASAP.

 

What I've read is that having the Vista license entitles you to use XP, but you have to provide the media. What you do is install any copy of XP, then when you go to activate you call the # and explain that you are a Vista owner. They do some confirmation and activate XP for you. Or so I have read

 

Does it invalidate your Vista key or could you dual boot with it?

 

rather obious you can't dual-boot with it: that would mean someone who bought Vista gets a free XP ... they won't do that

a better question would be: can you use the key afterwards to activate Vista (after you call in again, and explai that NOW you're going to use Vista ... you wouldn't be allowed to use XP then of course)

 

Well that's rather useless s

 

Dual-booting with the same activation key is not supported by Microsoft, no. You have to buy a seperate license if you want to do it legally.