Clean Vista install WITH NO ACTIVATION

I dont have recovery disk and dont want to activate key from the bottom of the laptop by call Microsoft to activate.
Please help me to recover license key from vista preinstalled. Stupid me install clean vista and dont save the activation original factory.
Now recover 300 Gb with GetDataBack for NTFS v3.03 and dont now how to recover key and where is it.
Please help me step by step how to recover key.

 

Without the recovery disk or other way to recover the original data, it will be very difficult to find this information. You mentioned the you used "GetDataBack". Please describe the situation that you used it. Did you have information on another hard disk, and used it on that, or did you use it on the disk that you did a clean installation on?

Also, which version of Vista do you have?

 

just wanted to post and say that this worked on my gateway mt3705 after i bought a new hdd. i installed from the anytime upgrade dvd and all went smoothly. thanks for the great utility!

 

I cannot speak for versions of Ghost other than 2003 (my favorite). I know that to clone a Vitsa install with 2003, you must first do the BCD Edit thing, before you backup. Without it, Vista is tied to the hard drive it was installed to, and will refuse to start from another disk. I would guess that some newer cloning software may fix this up for you, but again, I am unsure.

I do know that after running the BCDEdit commands, Vista does not seem to care what sort of drive it boots from. I have even been able to go IDE to SCSI and back.

Also, this cloning probably only works on machines that are faily close to identical, however, I am sometimes very suprised to find out how much the hardware can actually vary, and still be a successful. I have even seen it work on XP going from a AMD to an Intel based machine!

Of course, take all this advice at yor own risk

Joe

 

The guide worked perfectly for me on a Compaq Presario F572US laptop

 

I don't want to come off as being negative but, after looking at the instructions for this guide it seems as though there is too much work to do for the little advantage you will gain in return. I much rather use an uninstaller like Ccleaner to remove programs I dont need. It just seems a whole lot easier and safer to go that route.

But hey there are obviously plenty of people that like to clean install, but just remember the more programs you install and uninstall over time, the more crap you'll have to remove anyways.

Just my two cents.

 

Its easy as.. you can train a monkey to do this. i dont see whats being risked by doing this option since you have the recovery disks

and the advantages are great. Ccleaner is no where near as good as having a fresh copy of windows. I used Ccleaner before i did a clean install, it helped but the clean install was alot better. It also fixed my lightscribe drive and improved my gaming performance, not to mention i still have full functionality of everything

1:30-2min unresponsive boot up time cut down to half on a fresh install

 

thanks for posting this. Everything worked great, Vista seems alot more responsive now and quicker to startup/shutdown. Definitely worth the effort to do this and deal with installing drivers.

 

There are many options you can take to get your Vista clean, but this is the only way you can be truly sure. For more information, please see the F-A-Q at the bottom of the guide that explains in more detail the reasons why.

 

Guys i need help here,
i CANNOT burn my Swsetup folder.(c:Swsetup). I'm using windows built-in burner. It starts burning stops somwhere halfway saying about 1 hour 35 munites left but it doesn't burn anymore no matter how long i wait.
Please, what am i doing wrong here. I cant start this procedure without the Swsetup folder?

 

This guide worked perfectly on my Toshiba A215-S4747. Thanks Orev!

 

....and
my C: drive has been partitioned with windows so that i have other stuff on d: (C: and d: are the same physical drive). Can i install on the c: side without losing the info on d:? and what should i look out for?

 

Try a different burning program or just store it in an external HDD/Media. You need the drivers in that folder for a clean install. I wouldnt recomend storing it on a different partition on the same drive as you may delete it by accident while installing a fresh copy of windows

 

Thanks a lot, but IS there a way to NOT loss the data on my d: partition (it holds all my videos, pics and music...will take forever to burn, about 30 gigs) and the recovery psrtition? I have 160gig hd and i've so far managed to use about 50 gigs. i will delet the recovery partition when i need to.

 

It is possible to perform the installation without losing the data on your D:. However, if you do any messing with the disks, or format the disk, there's always a chance that you will get the wrong partition, and all of your stuff will be gone. If you have any way to back everything up, I strongly suggest you do it. It's a safety measure that is worth taking.

For the problems you have with swsetup, try using roxio to burn the disk instead of the windows burner.

 

Ok, i will burn the stuff and will try roxio. i was trying to cut down the time.
Should i do anything different with this procedure IF i want to hold on to my d: and recovery partitions?
What is confusing in the procedure is part about formating Disk 0 partition 1 and which ones to choose.

 

It is extremely helpful if you are familiar with the process of partitioning a disk. The guide goes through deleting all of the partitions and using 1 big one, but if that's not what you want to do, then you will need to plan it out yourself. You don't need to delete any partitions at all, and you can choose to install only to the C: drive.

I do recommend formatting that partition before installing. However, because there are so many ways people could want to do it, I can't possibly explain every situation. At a certain point, you must be able to rely on yourself to make the judgment on how to set up the partitions.

The fact that you have already setup another partition for the data says that you probably know enough to handle it.

 

I now have the C:Swetup, my windows anytime upgrade CD, Hp's system recovery CD, The ABR thing on my drive and on a piece of paper, and a backup of all my files.....I'm a bird in flight
Orev, here I come!!!!!!!!!!

 

Eureka!!!!!!!!!!!
Orev, you are the man!!!!! Everything is done and successful. This was easy as ABCD....., easy as sunday morining!
For everyone scared to give it a try, PLease give it a try!
Whats amazing was how quickly Vista installed, so all this slow instalation thing was because of bloatware?
Thanks a lot. Am stilling updating from Hp.
Now, Can someone tell me why my windows time keep changing any time i reset?

 

Have you done all the window's updates? Could be that because today is the day light savings time would have changed, it's trying to change the time. Once you get the update so it knows our stupid new day light savings time (two weeks from now), it's be okay?

 

Hi, I've just bought a HP Compaq6710b. It goes with Vista Buisness, but i don't have a Upgrade DVD, what can I do about it? I need a clean install in order to partition my drive correct, because the shrink function doesn't work out for me.... and the OS is full lit stuff I don't need.
Please help, can i download image from somewhere and use the serial I got from ABR, I need fast solution...

 

You can buy it off CompUSA for like $5. Theres also downloading the image from torrents but i wouldnt really recommend this.

 

thanks, i called HP and they will send it to me!
Very usefull topic, respect!

 

Thanks Joe & Orev!

I actually thought I would give it a shot without making those changes, and it all seems to work fine! It may be because I am using Ghost 12 (which is awesome btw), or coz the configs as well as OEM keys (I think) were the same for the 2 laptops, or I just got plain lucky. Nevertheless, was able to save SO MUCH time in trying to reinstall everything on the 2nd laptop from scratch.

Cheers!!

 

Careful - what HP will send has all the bloatware included in it. AFAIK, you will NEED to get the discs from CompUSA if you want to do a true clean install. Be prepared to wait more than a month for it as shipping takes a looong time.

 

Good point, make sure they are sending you an Anytime Upgrade Disc, not a Recovery Disc. However, reports for the compusa disc lately seem to indicate shipping is going much faster now.

 

Hmm I told them that I want a Update Disk, to make a clean install, hope they send me tha right thing, but even if they don't i hope to be able to at least reinstall and format my hard drive the way i want and remove the recovery stuff, because i realy don't need it..
And by the way - i'm from europe....

 

If the disc you get is the Recovery Disc, it will contain all of the bloatware and you don't get to choose which to install.

Any 32bit Vista disc will do, as they are all the same. You already have a license for it, you just need the disc. If you know someone who has the retail disc, you can use that for the install (just make sure to use your license key).

 

This worked for me! Thanks a lot orev! I did it on my desktop...from 32-bit to 64-bit. Please take note that SOME HARDWARE WON'T WORK WITH A 64-BIT SYSTEM! Check your hardware first! I had to go back to being wired because my wireless adapter didn't have drivers for Vista 64. It's ok I just switched the computers and now my desktop can see the full 4GB of memory.

 

Glad it worked for you. Drivers can be an issue, so that's good advice to check before you install.

BTW: Thanks to everyone for the rep points!

 

what model # and drivers didn't work? I'm thinking about going from 32 to 64 on my dv9500z. It seems like all the necessary 64 bit drivers are available from hp.com

 

1. Boot into the bios
a. Set the date back to December 20th 2006
2. Boot off your recovery disc
a. During setup it will ultimately boot into Vista as you will see the Vista boot screen and etc. "I had mine installing the pre-installed software so I havn't checked a install without. I'm sure it will work though."
b. While it is installing. Hit CTRL - ALT - DEL and choose the task manager.
c. Start a new process, "cmd.exe"
d. type, "date 11-01-2007" Actually whatever today's date is.
e. type, "slmgr -rearm"
f. Wait for it to finish installing.

3. After all is done and installed. go to the command prompt and type slmgr -xpr

Walla! Totally activated!

This worked on my VAIO. SONY should have taken care of this for us, among others. I paid a lot for this laptop and I'm by far no pirate. So why are we treeted like scum. Vista isn't even that great. I mean you have to basically update it for 2-days to get the performance up. I had just gave in and installed UBUNTU then Slackware for some time. But one night I was thinking why I had to accept being treeted like a punk. I suspect my legitimate copy of 2007 office is just as bad.

I've actually delt with ms support trying to punch in the 32 bit code over the tele. They were nice about it but I don't like being questioned about my reasoning for having to reinstall. Put it like this, "Say its 2009 and you need to install vista again." Well you can't because the telephone is down. oh bother n/m

rant

 

Interesting procedure. I would still be concerned that after your 30 days is up, or you run out of re-arm tries that it will eventually stop working. Using ABR will restore it completely so you don't ever have to worry about it.

If anyone gets that working, I'd be interested to hear about it.

 

Orev,
In another post to me in a different thread, you made it sound like I would have no licensing issues taking my HP dv9500z with 32bit Vista Home Premium to 64bit Home Premium

However, in the original post in this thread:

I just ordered the 64 bit anytime disc from CompUSA. I should be ok from a license standpoint, correct?

 

The key and activation will work on the 64bit version, and Microsoft has no incentive to prevent people from switching between 32 and 64 bit, as long as they are on the same edition of Vista.

I say that because I am not a lawyer, and this seems to be a gray area in the licensing terms. The general consensus is that you can do this with no problem.

 

Sounds good, thanks again for you work on this thread. I'm hoping 64bit Vista with 4GB of ram will be a bit snappier than 32bit Vista with 2GB.

 

That's right, the same activation procedure and even the license key on the bottom of the laptop will work for 64-bit - I've tried it and called Microsoft to activate my 64-bit license.

Yes and no.

While it will work, the license you agreed to when you bought the laptop was only for the 32-bit version, so HP will only support the 32-bit install. If you switch to 64-bit, HP will not honour the license and will not give you support until you re-install the 32-bit software.

As far as legit licensing from Microsoft, that's still a bit unclear, but most Microsoft reps claim it's legal to install the 64-bit version - one license is good for both as long as it's the same edition, like Premium, Ultimate, Business. But Microsoft does not support OEM editions, the hardware vendor does, so unless you buy a retail license, Microsoft will not help you if you have an OS issue.

Having said that, I switched to 64-bit because I know more about supporting my setup than both HP and Microsoft combined (google helps too), so I don't need them anyway.

Just verify that all of your peripherals (printer, scanner, etc.) are supported first and go for it, and have fun!

 

In my experience, the operating system itself is a bit snappier. If you have 64-bit applications that are written for multi-threaded CPUs, then they will be a bit snappier too.

However, 32-bit applications will run a bit slower. Not a lot, but a bit. I feel the trade-off is worth it.

NB - don't try to run 64-bit Vista with less than 1.5gigs of RAM as it will slow down quite a bit.

 

Maybe I should add a F-A-Q. I think it's sort of understood that if you do a clean install using this guide, it won't be supported by HP. I would expect that most people can figure this out, but you never know what to expect from people!

 

True...some people googling for info might not realize it's not supported.

PS - not sure if I said, "thanks for the guide" before, it made re-installs on my computer a lot easier (I re-install about 6-8 times a year due to alpha and beta tests).

 

HI

I own "generic OEM" Vista Ultimate 32bits and would like to backup activation information too. Unfortunately this tools doesn't work for me.

===== OEM Windows Vista Activation Backup 11-Oct-2007 [by orev] =====
USE ONLY FOR LAWFUL PURPOSES!!!

Backing up product key...
-------------------------
Found key: XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX-XXXXX
Saved to file: backup-key.txt

Backing up activation...
------------------------
!!! Could not find activation certificate !!!

** There was a problem running the backup
** All of the information may not be saved!!!

Press <enter> to exit

 

If you go into the system control panel, can you tell me what the activation status is? Does it say "Windows is activated" or does it say something else? Also, was Vista installed on your system when you bought it, or did you install the OEM version yourself? What make and model is the computer?

Thanks.

 

1. Windows is activated, key code looks like XXXXX-OEM-XXXXXXX-XXXXX.

2. I've installed it from the "generic" OEM version that one can buy cheaper than retail/BOX and only differences are in EULA.

3. I've made it It's desktop PC - I do not think specs are important here.

I know your tool was designed for something else but I would like to backup activation on this PC to avoid calling m$ in future after another reinstallation. It was easily on windows XP one have to copy just too files IIIRC.

BTW. I'm not sure if this is important or not but my Vista product description is: Windows Vista Ultimate 32-bit Polish 1pk DSP OEI DVD

Thanks for your help

 

Ok. ABR will not work for you. It will only work on Vista that has come pre-installed on the computer from a place like HP, IBM, etc... I would like to improve ABR, but I need cooperation from others who have different versions. If you are willing to help, you can send me a PM and I'll need you to send me a file from your system so I can analyze it.

 

helpful thread

 

Thanks Orev for your excellent guide!
I want to ask a different question.
Which of all programms of HP included in a recovery disk, is necessary for laptop's user?

 

hi

I think i really made a f**k up when i was doing to restore my hp dv9500 to an earlyer point. After I started the restore my laptop loged of as usuall, but didnt shut of an start up again. I waited around 15 min and the screen was still black, so i tried to shut it of and start it again. After that i got a message thet there where no os on the laptop. i tried get data back, and found most of the files i need, but im unsure if the files are corrupted. Are there anyway to find out if they are.

I found the OEMcert folder with "oem-cert.xrm-ms" og "oem-instrall.vbs".
I also found the swsetup folder.
Where can i find the key.

thanks for all the help i can get

 

this guide is perfect. does anyone know if after using the ABR files, can you restore someone elses product number using your own restore files we created with ABR?

 

Once you install the drivers, there are other programs you might want, depending on your needs.

If you have the fingerprint reader, you will need the verisoft software.
I would suggest you use the HP wireless support software, and install the "essential system updates" for vista. You should also install quickplay and quickplay buttons to get full support for the touch buttons and the remote control.

Anything else is up to you.

The key is in the registry. Did you take the drive out to access the data in another computer, or does getdataback have a boot disk or something? Do you have recovery discs that you burned yourself?

It depends on the situation. Does the other person have a license? Do they have the same exact system you have? In general, you probably cannot do this, but maybe if you explain more, someone can help.

 

what i mean is this:
I have a friend who did a clean install and forgot to back up his product number using the ABR files.
Now i want to do a clean install on my own computer. i did the abr product number back up (I still have the product number restore files on my USB) and activated it on my notebook.

my friend and i have the same computer and the same OS. his vista is gonna run out of trial because he doesnt have a product no.

What i want to know is that can i use my ABR files to try to make vista activated for him? will there be any issue in that?