Clean Vista install WITH NO ACTIVATION

backup dvd...as in restore dvd?

what about compusa?

 

"backup" is a euphemism, but a restore dvd is a different thing. The main guide has the "definitions" of each type of disc.

Now your options are to buy one for somewhere around $20, borrow one from someone else, or download it using the download links in the main guide.

 

i would prefer to buy it. know any places, specifically retail stores?

 

What's wrong with Windows Marketplace? I don't know if retail stores carry it.

 

Retail stores will probably only sell it with a license, unless you try out some of the Mom & Pop shops. Anything more than $20 and you're buying a new license, which you don't need.

 

i prefer to not shop online.

what exactly is windows marketplace? is it like an ebay type of thing where anyone and everyone can buy, sell, and trade?

 

do you know if it is still in stock @ compusa?

 

Windows Marketplace is Microsoft's online store. Completely safe and reliable.

A quick search on their website yields this. They don't seem to have backup disks though.

 

so this was on the windowsmarketplace website.

does this mean that i would have had to order something else from them beforehand in order to get the disc?

has anyone on here successfully ordered the disc from this site?

 

You should be able to order one without purchasing anything else. What I believe that quote is saying is that you already need a license to activate the copy of Windows Vista that the backup disk would install.

Here is the product link I posted a few pages back:

EDIT: Oops I see the quote you posted is from that website

 

hi im new this thing has me confused. What I understand so far is that I have two Vista ultimate licences's? I have a dell xps 420 with Ultimate preinstalled plus it came with a "re-installation disc". The key on the back doesnt match the one jellybean found. So if I were to to build a pc and use someone elses Installation disc and use the key on the back of my dell i should be ok right?

 

actually, that's not legal.............

 

Oh i forgot to add If i were to lose my OEM reinstallation disc that Dell provided and i were to use someone elses DVD and use the key that jellybean found it should also be ok on my XPS? right? with no needing to call microsoft. So basically this all means two keys equal two licenses so I can have Ultimate on two computers? Please reply im so confused.

 

so why the multiple keys?

 

the key on the laptop is your "real" key

the key vista came installed with is the "bulk oem key" that dell uses when it pre-installs vista on it's pc's. It's the same key that is part of the re-installation disk you received.

as long as you always use the reinstall disk to reinstall vista, you won't ever have to use the key on the bottom of the laptop.

1 note, for what it's worth-- record the key from the bottom of the laptop somewhere safe. You have no idea how many people/clients I have dealt with that had actually worn the key off the bottom to where it was no longer legible. We now use a short strip of clear packing tape to cover key/coa and to protect it.

 

No. A license is an agreement between you an Microsoft. They could give you 1000 keys, but as long as that agreement says you can only use it on one computer, that's all you can do.

Licenses are not a technical limitation that if you can get around it means that the license allows it. They are a legal limitation that can easily be explained and understood in front of a judge, regardless of whether the technical measures that were put in place were sufficient to uphold it.

 

sorry i' newbie here
have one question,it is said here that,after i use HP_recovery my notebook will be as in the box,so if my system becomes unstable, instead of installing OS,i just can run HP_recovery(f11 at boot up) ,am i right>?
so if i use recovery option will i loose my data?
an one more questioion please, there is another partition on my hdd besides HP_recovery, called OS tools , what is it for?

 

The recovery partition will restore your computer to the condition it was in when you received it. Your data will be erased.

 

what if i just repartition my hdd during clean install an use the product key located at the bottom of my notebook?
vista has automated driver instalation, am i right? so i dont need to install drivers at all while using vista.
and what if i buy vista premium licence, why can't i install it?

 

Did you receive OS reinstall disks from HP? That would give you a clean Vista install without the bloatware that the recovery partition would install. Either way, you don't need to use the product key on the bottom of your laptop.

I recommend going to HP's driver download site and downloading the latest drivers for your computer and installing them after your clean install to ensure your system is working and stable. MS Update will search for updated drivers, but if you use the ones from HP's site, you should be fine.

You could buy a Home Premium License and install it but I don't know why you would want to do that since you already have a license.

 

no, i didn't recieve OS reinstall disks from HP
i have three partitions windows partition,HP_restore and OS tools(what is it for?).
so if i just perform a clean install with vista,using may licence key(vista home basic OEMaqt hp product key) it would be fine ya?
what about ultimate - licence ?

 

You can do that too, but then you have to call Microsoft and explain to them why you are doing it. If you don't mind asking Microsoft's permission every time you install, then go for it. Otherwise ABR is easy and you won't have to worry about it.

I would not rely on the Vista driver installation. That's not really a feature touted for Vista, even though there are a lot included. You always want to have the drivers direct from the OEM because they are more customized.

As for buying a license, as was already said, you already bought one, so why would you buy another one?

 

HP doesn't give clean install discs, so you'll have to figure out where to get them. The main guide here has a link to a thread where you can download it.

I get the feeling you haven't read the guide here. You can reinstall using your license key, or if you use ABR you can back it up and not have to use it. If you want to install Ultimate, you'll need to buy a license for that, since you only have a license for Basic.

 

sanderik, many of the questions you have been asking are answered in the first post of this thread. I suggest you read the entire post because it is full of great information that would answer the questions you've been asking. orev put a lot of effort into creating and maintaining the guide... it's worth a read.

 

ok thank you very much ,it was very helpful

 

could someone please explain this step below a little further for me.

I am new to this and don't want to mess my laptop up.

unzip essentially means download right?

thanks!

 

yes............

you wont mess your laptop up.

 

It's just a long-winded way of saying:
"download, unzip, then run the program"

 

Okay I am having on heck of a time getting this thing to work for me. I have downloaded all the files, checked sized to confirm etc. I have made the iso using nero, verified disc image after burning and it still gives me an error when installing. It will stop installing during the "Expanding Files" around 80% and give me an error code 0x800706f8. Tried burning new isos etc, still no dice. I am trying to install this on my recently purchased HP dv2815nr laptop.

 

Here's an interesting link about this problem, though I'm not sure it will help that much: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/930984 It points the finger at a problem with the DVD drive.

One thing it mentions is you can try to install Vista from the hard drive, which will take the DVD out of the equation. That's here: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/928902/

Otherwise, a google search for that error code shows some results.

 

This is really getting to me, the more I try, the more I wish I bought a mac. When i first tried it it worked flawlessly. Now that I'm trying to again I will stop at completing instaltion. Their doesn't seem to be any hardware issue I just got it back from Hp and they have fixed the issues where I coudn't see my secondary hard-drive nor was I wable to load from the operating system.Now that both those issues are resolved. It will not install the operating system for me. It well lock up on completing instaltion. If anyone here can help me out that would be great, I would hate to waste mytime trying to use the recovery cd's again.

 

Does this tool work when loading Vista on your OEM computer in a Virtual Machine?

My HP came with Vista but I'm going to relegate Windows to VirtualBox on Linux Mint.

 

At what point exactly is it locking up? What is going on on the system? Is the screen black or does it have something on it? Does it reboot? Is there an error message or something that is displayed?

No, it will not work in a VM. The activation certificate needs to be able to see the hardware BIOS, and in a VM it will see the VM BIOS.

 

I get nothing no error message, or even messages everything goes through as expected except when it reaches the last stepp "Completing installtion". It just sits there, I left it at that for 10 hours and to no avail. I kinda read up on the issue and it seemed that some people just updated their bios and was able to get this issue resolved so I used the recovery cd's and got back to my original settings flashed the bios and tried again, samething.

What I'm trying to say is that it goes through all the steps and nothing happens.

P.S. I don't know if this matters but I did notice that when it was at the step where it say's "Completing installtion" the whole screen flickers black and goes back to what it was doing as if nothing happened...is that normal, don't recall seeing that when I first tried it.

 

Orev, thanks for the help. I have done some googling, but nothing makes sense. Microsoft documentation refers to Dell computers with samsung drives. I have an HP with an HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T20L ATA Device as listed in my device manager. The drive works fine in all aspects read/write etc.. I just went back and recovered using the discs I made. Thankfully there isn't a lot of crapware from the factory and most of the vista issues I had are gone.

 

Both of you might get some results if you install from a USB drive instead. See here: http://kurtsh.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!DA410C7F7E038D!1665.entry

You can probably use an external hard drive instead of a flash drive if you don't have a flash drive big enough. Warning: this method will probably require more experience than what my guide walks you through.

 

I am sorry for the maybe "lame" question but Im kinda bored to read the whole thread... What is the point of going through all the trouble, when you can just install the new windows with your existing serial number and activate it online. I just did it yesterday and it took windows like 10 seconds to activate itself after the installation was complete. I didn't have to call anyone or provide any particular information except for the serial number that I wrote in the beginning of the installation.

 

The guide is particularly useful if you want to reinstall in OEM copy of Vista that you don't have a reinstall disk for.

 

Most of this guide is simply a walk-through of ANY typical Vista install. It gives you some "before" steps, like backup your data and create the recovery discs, then walks you through the install, then tells you to reinstall drivers and programs. ALL of those steps are identical to what anyone installing Vista would do.

What you call "all that trouble" is nothing more than all of the steps you would have to perform anyway when doing a a clean install. The only "special" steps are backing up and restoring the activation, which makes two steps more then you would have to do normally.

 

Worked like a charm! Sony AR model.
Thanks a lot for the guide!

 

i have one question tho..after goin thro this whole process, when we need to download something from microsoft, will the clean vista installation still be regarded as genuine?

 

i have another question, and i maybe banned for asking it..but where i live, you can get loads of pirated vista installation disks...can i use one of those disks and install vista?or download it thro torrents and download teh WAU disk also thro torrents???

and does this method maintain the fact tht our laptop has genuine windows?

 

I just want to point out that searching google for

returns this guide as the second hit.

Searching google for

returns this guide as the first hit.

 

YES

Don't ask about Pirated items again !!!!!!!! This would not show as genuine.

The torrent might work.......

 

so i can get the anytime upgrade disk thro torrents and tht should b ok, and use tht as the installation medium?and if i download tht thro torrents, and burn it to a dvd, would i hav to make it a bootable dvd?

 

and using the above method the genuineness of vista will not be lost right?

 

forgive me, i am new to this stuff..but how EXACTLY do I go about doing this?

 

Copy & paste the entire folder to an external USB hard drive/ thumb drive or burn it to a CD/DVD.

 

thanks got it!

 

This guide worked great!!
I did this to an HP DV2419us. Most things worked right away. The rest of the drivers I needed were very easy to install from HPs website or the SWSETUP. ABR activation worked even when moving from a 32-bit to a 64-bit. YES!
Getting my hands on a disc was difficult. I bit torrented one from thepiratebay.org.

I actually like Vista now that its pace has picked up a bit.