OEM W7 Disc & Laptop Product Key

I tried looking up information up about this, and there were a LOT of threads. So many, in fact, that I wasn't sure which one applied to what I wanted to do!

I bought an Acer Aspire AS5552-7819. I want to do a clean install.

I have a Windows 7 Premium Home 64-bit OEM installation disc from when I built my desktop. The disc still works perfectly fine, but the Product key is now being used.

Can I use the disc to do a clean install, and then use the Acer Product Key (on the bottom of the laptop) to active Windows 7?

Is there anything I ought to know before trying this? (I think I found the right drivers already so.... drivers here.) Links to other threads are fine.

 

Yes, that's what the key on the bottom of the machine is there for.

 

You might need to call up Microsoft by phone to get it activated.

 

You can use ABRBETA.

 

You can use it no problems, but as mentioned, you may have to call Microsoft to activate, but this is pretty staright forward and it's an automated service.

What you might want to do though, is download the wireless and ethernet drivers before installing, and have them handy, windows can't always find drivers for these 2 on the initial install, and can be a pita if you don't have another computer handy.

 

Excellent! Thank you everyone!

 

I did that last week on customer pc, the whole phone activation call took 2min 2sec and it was all automated Future installs do not even need phone activation as the key is then bound on that setup.

 

I know that this is probably off-topic but i have also a COA key on my Z and everytime i do a fresh install have to call to microsoft to activate is there any solution for doing this automatically over the internet without calling?

 

You could also just do your clean installation, activate it, and even install your favorite programs... then... make a system image using Windows Backup & Restore. So, whenever you feel the need to clean install, you can just restore from that backup image, but Windows will have already been activated.

 

@ Draw2Much
I did the same thing last night, but with an HP DM4. I used this link http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...-7-download-links-just-like-vista-before.html I used the ISO method because it was less downloads and alot easier IMO.

@Anseio
Is there another program that I can use for the same purpose? Because whenever I back up my drive, It gives me a copy of the factory installation; not the current state.

 

usualy it has the same size as install?because after installation it still has <5 gb..hope it works with usb also cuz i don't have a optical unit

 

It's the same size as all of the data currently on the drive.

Yes, it does work with drives connected via USB.

 

Hm, do these downloads have Windows with the latest updates? Because if that's the case I'll probably use them. It'd be less time consuming then having to download and install every update that's come out since I got my W7 disc. D:

 

These are updated iso's with SP1 integrated, will save a lot of updates hopefully:

http://forum.notebookreview.com/win...iver-download-windows-7-sp1-13-languages.html

 

Nevermind.

 

Just FYI, I ended up using my W7 install disc. Everything went just fine! Updates were not as time consuming as I was expecting, which was nice. I had to call Microsoft to validate my copy, but that was easy like everyone said. (Btw, Microsoft has the best voice recognition software I've ever come across....)

The most time consuming part was installing all my Sims 3 games and all my videos.

Thank you, everyone, for all your great advice! I really appreciate it!