Bought a laptop, came with vista installed, got the CDs, can I install them on another computer?

I bought a computer last month and had genuine windows vista: ultimate edition and microsoft office home and student 2007 installed on it. They also sent me the DVDs for them (product keys on the back) (the vista one says "already installed on your computer. Reinstallation DVD: Windows Vista Ultimate 32 Bit. This DVD is not for reinstallation of programs or drivers").
I got another dvd that is is titled "drivers and utilties already installed on your computer. For reinstalling Dell XPS M1330 computer software".

I'm about to order a 2nd computer (dell vostro) and I want to know if I can use those CDs to install both vista and office home and student on it. On this computer I will be getting Vista Home basic for free and if i want vista ultimate I have to pay $149+. I also get the microsoft office version WITHOUT word/excel/powerpoint.

I'm wondering if I can use those DVDs to install vista ultimate and office home/student on my vostro.

Note- both computers will be capable of running all these programs



Thank you!

 

Legally, no. The license that you received for the 1330 is only for that machine. The same goes for the vostro.

Not sure about the MS Office though. Because I heard something about installing on 3 home computers, but that's probably retail version anyway. Someone else might know better.

 

If they did include a full license for Office 2007 Home and Student, you should be able to install it on 2 other computers (this is the standard licensing agreement).

But as f4ding said, the Windows license is only for the machine your purchased with it. The CD's are intended for reinstallation/restoration, not installing on another machine. You would run into difficulty activating it with the same key anyway.

 

So how does that work if you wipe a machine completely, and reinstall the OS? I only ask because I've never purchased a machine with the OS already installed (in the past I had bought full versions of Win 98, 2000, and XP Pro and installed myself). If your hard drive fails and you need to replace, or you purchase a larger one, would you be able to activate the OS or would you still run into problems?

 

Sure. You would be asked to activate it again - the main point is that you're licensed to use the OS on the machine you bought it with. Wiping the drive and doing a fresh install would be fine (in fact, that's one of the main things people are expected to use the restore CD for).

-Zadillo

 

So I've got an Athalon 2800 desktop with XP Pro on it, which I'm stripping some of the parts to build a Vista Home Theater PC. I'll probably end up trashing the case and MB unless I can find someone who wants it. I do have the XP Pro disk. Is it legal to load it on another machine? I really don't see why not as I'm getting rid of the other computer, and not trying to use it on two PC simultaneously.

 

It depends; assuming the the XP Pro license that came with that desktop was an OEM version, it technically might be tied to that hardware. However, I believe most XP OEM licenses did allow for transfer to new hardware, so I suspect you would still be OK since you wouldn't be trying to use it on multiple systems.

-Zadillo

 

Hey everyone,

I'm having a similar dilemma as well. Here is the situation:
I have a full legal version of Vista Ultimate that I want to install over Vista Premium. However, I feel that this might be a waste considering that I can use the disk on a OS-less machine. So, is it possible to "deactivate" the license later (undo the upgrade?) and transfer it to another machine? Thanks!

 

Legally, you may use your retail license on one machine at any given time. You may only use an OEM license on the computer it was preinstalled on.