Windows XP Recovery Disks on a Vista Premium T61

I had a Vista Home Premium T61 and I wiped the hard drive clean and am in need of recovery disks.

I called Lenovo and they offered to sell me Vista HP disks for $45, but wouldn't sell me XP ones. They said that if I had Vista Ultimate or Business then I would qualify for the downgrade. My question is will the XP recovery disks work if I buy them from someone else.

My model # is 7658 and according to other information I found online this model was produced with both Vista and XP. Anyone had luck with this or would it be smarter to just buy a copy of XP and install it that way (more expensive and I have to get the drivers separately). Or should I just buy the Vista HP disks, sell the T61 and buy an Apple.

 

I'm responding to myself - it seems that Lenovo manufactures the license into the bios of the machine itself so XP disks wouldn't actually work because they would be able to recognize that I have Vista HP.

Thoughts on buying a copy of XP vs. selling the stupid thing and getting a Mac?

 

Yeah ... Lenovo seems to only be offering XP Pro discs right now for the Business and the Ultimate versions of Vista.

And even then the process is a difficult one to "jump hoops" through.... (See my recent thread on that here: http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=315029)

 

the disks they'll send you are os and the programs you had when they sent you the machine

your vista serial number is and will be valid, though

so if you can obtain vista disks elsewhere, you should be good to go.

MS has this vista alternative media thing where they send you the disks for the price of shipping and handling. they ask you for your s/n and tell you if you qualify

 

also, universities have xp pro sp2 for $15 or so. dunno if you have access to that, but I would not mind paying just that

 

So if I could find someone else who has the same computer model as me (I'm a student and many people here have the same model #), could I use their disks and then just input my Vista product key from the bottom of my T61?

 

This is directly related to the licensing of Windows, in relation to Vista and XP. In the Business and Ultimate versions of Vista, the license entitles you to ALSO run a copy of XP on the same machine. The Home versions do not entitle you to do this same thing. I thought this was originally built into the license to allow people to run a VM of XP using the same license as Vista, but it could have been to make the downgrading of licenses for businesses easier as well.

And to answer your question above, yes you can use anyone's disks that has the same model. They are all the same.

 

No. It will work, but it's illegal.

 

Sorry, but its not illegal to use a different set of RECOVERY disks than the ones that shipped with your machine. The important part here is your LICENSE, which from everything you have said here is intact.

If you have a license for home premium on your machine, then your LICENSE will work for Home Premium recovery disks just fine without any legal or moral infractions.

 

no, it is not illegal as long as he uses his own product key
that is why ms offers alternative media for a single product key, too

 

I tried the alternate media thing but MS said I didn't qualify because I didn't buy a retail version of Windows Vista - maybe I'll just try to borrow someone's recovery CDs.

 

rats! I was counting on getting the 64-bit disks. I guess I won't qualify, either