Vista Ultimate Retail vs OEM installation product key

Hello I have a quesition.

My buddy is buying an HP DV9000t with a legal verison of Vista Ultimate preloaded on it and is expecting it next week.

I bought a legal version of Vista Ultimate from the store yesterday.

If he formats and loads my Retail Ultimate disc on it (using his valid OEM Serial #), will Vista Ultimate accept it so he is guaranteed a true Clean install rather than using the dvd image provided by HP which has bloatware on it?

Also, Where Can he locate his Vista Ultimate serial from HP (on his notebook? in the control panel?)

Will this work? Feedback please.

 

I would think so. I havent seen a laptop with Vista preinstalled on it yet, you would figure that the product key is on the bottom.

You could give it a spin, and try it out. Make another partition to give it a try, it should work i think.

 

No it will not work, you cannot use an OEM key on a retail copy.

 

I have done it for years with XP. I guess maybe they've changed some thing with Vista, if airman is 100% sure.

 

i though the vista dvd had all the version on it and installed what was allowed by the key?

 

You're right. thats how it is. I dont know honestly, airman says you cant use an oem key, i dont know exactly how they differ.
My experience with vista installs is limited. i havent got my vista upgrade in the mail yet, and although i have had vista for months now, they been beta bootlegs

 

The Vista DVD does have all the versions however I'm pretty sure you can't use an OEM key on a retail copy

 

I have done it with XP but I am pretty sure Vista will not allow you to.

 

I wonder why. I mean Why not? As long as it is a legal and valid key, it should work. Has anyone actually, tried it yet?

 

this is all very new to most right now. all the little tricks and workarounds.

Until someone trys it, giving a 100% answer will be a little difficult. i would give it a try, and see what happens. you do have a valid key, albeit oem, you may be able to call msoft like before to get a install key.

the way i install xp, even on my DV6000t, is my Dell XP SP2 disc that i got with my 710m. i use the same disc on all my pc's. never any probs

 

well u cud for example install it without a product key then activate it with the oem key, or maybe at that time u need to contact microsoft and tell them why ur installing an oem key on a retail copy?

 

Would that work? I hope. I just wish someone who had ultimate retail and an oem key could try it and test it out.. or find out.

I called MS and they said

"It wont work.. but if you got it to work you may be committing fraudlent activity and not be eligible for future updates."

I dunno what to think..

 

I have almost done it as I have 3 DV6000's right now, 2 of which will be returned.

Copy of retail Vista DVD - I do not have valid product key for it as someone else will be using it.

I took the DV6000t that has defects and is going to be returned - this DV6000 originally came with XP-Pro. I used Gnome partition editor (a free-linux based utility similar to Partition Magic) to make a 20gb NTFS partition at the end of the XP Pro install.

I then made sure notebook still booted to XP Pro.
I then booted with the Retail Vista DVD and selected CLEAN INSTALL (it did say that I could NOT upgrade previous version of Windows with this retail CD - it is the FULL version), and selected the new/blank 20gb partition to install to.

It asked me for the Product Key. I used the Vista Product key from an HP6253CL bought from Costco (Vista Home Premium), which it accepted, and I unchecked the box to automatically activate when it connects to the Internet.

It accepted the product key. (I made sure that it would not accept anything by going back and intentionally changing one of the characters - then it complained it was not a valid product key.)

Vista installed and runs fine. It does tell me I have to activate within (##?days), but I do not actually want to activate this as it is just for testing; unless for some reason the activation server won't take the HP OEM product key, I would think there wouldn't be a problem.

The install wound up taking a little less than 10gb of drive space, and the notebook now dual boots to either Vista or XP-Pro.

My understanding is: OEM versions of Vista are different from Retail in that they include 2 extra files, and DO NOT REQUIRE ACTIVATION - they use these extra files and information in the BIOS to validate the product.

If Microsoft and the PC vendors intend to stop us from using the Retail Vista install to do a clean re-install of Vista, and will only allow you to RESTORE THE MACHINE TO OUT OF BOX BLOATED install, I'd say it's time for a revolt and mutiny!

The out-of-box DV6253CL has over 60 processes running according to task manager when I log in and TAKES A LONG TIME; the clean install Vista has 35 (although it doesn't have any antivirus software in its current config) and is much more responsive much sooner.

I would think that once people start getting the free upgrade DVDs for machines purchased with XP during the free upgrade period, there surely will be an alternative.

 

I can't see why bloatware packed Windows installs are that much of a problem, except to those who are real computer noobs.

There are ways to make a clean XP install CD from your XP install, see here. The actual work for doing this took maybe 10 minutes, and then you have a CLEAN Windows install CD. Yeah, it would be much sweeter if laptops had clean installs from the beginning but that's not going to happen.

My guess is that you can do exactly the same with Vista, I see no reason why not. Time will tell.

Edit: Well, the Vista install DVD looks pretty different to XP IIRC. I'm not saying that you can do this with Vista right now.

 

Update - I did a clean install of Windows XP, and then Vista from retail DVD on a 2nd partition on HP #3 (DV6253CL from Costco), and used the HP OEM product key.

You won't be able to activate online if you use this method. It will fail and give you a box to click on to do it by phone.
It will give you a # to call for an automated system and display a really long sequence of #s which you input to the automated system.

The automated system will then tell you it can't validate and will connect you to a represenative.

The represenative then asks you for the 1st six digits on the screen. I did tell him what I'd done (used a retail DVD to do a clean re-install and try using the OEM product key). He asked me for the brand and model of the notebook which I gave him, and after a short pause where I learned he was in India, he gave me the 48-digit sequence of numbers to enter on the computer and click NEXT, and Vista then activated on the Costco/HP.

Now, why would you want a clean install/no bloatware even if you don't want a dual-boot machine?
Shutdown takes 10 seconds on machine with clean install, 19 seconds on the HP factory-supplied install; Login until machine has loaded all startup items is even more of a difference (over 30 seconds longer on HP-supplied install)...

 

Err, what do you mean? To me it seems like we both prefer clean installs, right? I just said that a bloatware install is not that much of a problem since you can make a clean install CD out of it, problem solved. I didn't say that bloatware doesn't bother me.

 

Well there you go. we have our answer!

Phone activation is how i have to do my XP installs as well, unless its on one of my dells.

This is great news!

 

Sorry to dig up an old thread like this, but I have to correct something.

Absolutely, positively, 100% FALSE.

You cannot - EVER - use a retail key to activate an OEM Windows. It doesn't work the other way around either. I've tried many times, done a lot of experimenting etc.. But I DO have a solution. Here's the trick...

• Grab your Windows CD (OEM, retail or upgrade.. doesn't matter)
• Create an image (ISO) of it using a program like UltraISO, MagicISO etc...
• Open the ISO and copy the file \i386\setupp.ini to your computer
• Find the line that starts with pid=
• Change the number to 51882335 (for retail) or 51883270 (for volume license) or 55274OEM (for OEM) or 55276000 (for upgrade). You can also tell what version you have by looking at the existing pid number.
• Overwrite the setupp.ini file on your CD with the one you edited.
• Save the CD image and burn it to a new CD. Enjoy!

I found this thread looking for something similar in Vista, but I will continue looking.

 

sorry to digg up an old thread, but i think its important that this gets out..

I have a dv9500t laptop from hp vista home prem 32 bit, it kept crashing, so i got a freind to copy a vista retail cd for me so i could do a clean install. I used his retail disk and my OEM key on the back of my laptop and it works, but there is a few things you need to know


A vista install disk, no matter what it says, has all versions of vista on it, the disk i used to clean install home premium was a buisness install disk. The key you enter decides what version to install.

The only thing that im not sure about is 32 vs 64 bit, i dont know if a 32 bit cd will work with a 64 bit key and vice versa. i think a cd is either 32 or 64, not both, but i coould be wrong.


note: one reason this might work with some and not others is that i installed it on my computer that the key came with... maybe you cant install on a different comp?
You will need to do a phone activation, this is easy, just try to activate and it will fail, then click the option of activating by phone, call the number and in about 6 minutes you are valid! incase you want to know, you have to tell the computer lady a 40 digit or so code, then she gives you another 40 or so digit code that you type in on your comp, and thats all.


so im sorry to those who say "100% it wont work", i have done it, IT WORKS, at least with vista