Vista License and Pre-Loaded OS's.

Hello,

So I am currently debating on buying a laptop vs building a desktop. One of the things nagging me though is - if I build a desktop, I would buy the Vista Home Premium Retail Box. If I go for a laptop (leaning towards ASUS) I don't get the OS disc.

Now my question is, can I email ASUS (or whoever I end up buying it from) to give me an actual disc of the OS? I believe I read before (somewhere, some magazine maybe) that we *should* get them if we ask?

My second question is, assuming I go the desktop route - and buy a retail box of Vista - how many times can I install Vista? I have never upgraded or installed an OS before.

From what I understand - during activation, my copy/license is eventually married to hardware. So does that mean, if I build a whole new system a year from now I won't be able to use the disc I bought? What if I decide 6 months from now to upgrade my processor and do a clean install of Vista? Do I need to buy another copy of Vista???

Many thanks.

 

i believe you can order a os recovery kind of disc from the manufacterer. From xp, usally you can reuse the serial a few times, at least 2-3 times. the oem is the married one, the retail is not. possibly when you upgrade your cpu, you might have to reactivate windows if you use retail, and i think if you use oem and upgrade your hardware, it is gone

 

When I ordered my laptop, it came with an XP Pro disc (not a recovery cd). I ordered from an ODM, which definitely makes a difference. Rawpowerpc is where I ordered from, but their website appears to be down. However, there are many other ODMs that I'm sure would be able to get you a regular OS disc. It's the mainstream manufacturers that have their own recovery setup.

 

Thanks for the replies!

Good to know it's just the OEM one that's married to hardware. I know some boutiques like FalconNW add an OS disc - but right now, I'm most likely going to purchase at a local store vs online and am seriously eyeing a few ASUS models and unfortunately I just get a recovery disc.

Another question though - If I buy a laptop with Vista HP pre-loaded, and I wipe everything off, do a clean install of the much cheaper Windows XP MCE then use it for a few months to a year maybe until Vista gets it's act together.

Can I then use the recovery discs provided by say, Asus, to 'recover' Vista on my laptop? Or no? Since I wiped everything off..?

Thanks!

 

Yeah, I imagine that would work just fine.

 

Asus ships out a drivers disk with an embeded OEM version of the OS that will only work for that notebook.

Any of the full retial versions of vista give you an unlimited use licence for your personal use. Also the biggest difference that you didn't mention is that any of the retial products give you rights for a free "upgrade" to 64bit. You get a slip in the package that sends you to a MS site where you can order the 64bit version of your OS for free + cost of S&H. The OEM stuff you get with a machine does not give you these rights and your stuck with what you get.

I noticed Asus only offers x86 (32bit) for every vista version except Ultimate. I think thats a sly way to force the purchase of Vista Ultimate wich is extremely overpriced and totally pointless vs other versions for the few extras you get that you will never use.

If you have to buy Vista try to get the Academic version its the same as the normal one just cheaper. If you know you only need it for one machine the Academic Upgrade is 70$ shiped.

I was originally told the "upgrade" ones game with a full licence aswell but when I opened mine the other day it said the licence was good for one machine only.... That kind upset me. So I got Vista Ultimate x64 now thru alternate means.

 

Thanks for the reply, that helps a lot.

I'm not sure what you meant re: the Asus discs though - can I still do what the wipe it out, then install XP, then "recover" Vista using the Asus disc?

And also, if I buy a Vista Home Premium Full Version retail disc I can install it on as many PC's as I like? Or I can install it as many times I like on only one PC?

Thanks again.

 

One pc per license, just like the oem version. Difference is, you may be able to reactivate it online a few times before it flagged for phone activation(unlike oem).

 

OEM is bound to the computer it comes with period. If you change out a mobo or hdd ect, you will need a new copy.

Retail be it upgrade or full lets you transfer from one machine to another. But only supposed to have one machine at a time. They say you can transfer it only once, but if you call over the phone and say your computer died or somthing they will not give you any issues and let you activate as many times as needed. Not with OEM tho.