I have just recently bought a new computer built from scratch and im looking to put vista on it but what i want to do is wipe the old computer clean so it has no windows on it and then install vista on the new computer using the disk i used for my old one and then activte it. Is it possible for me to do that? and if it is can someone tell me what i will need to do?
View 4 RepliesOld pc with Windows Vista Home Premium Upgrade died yesterday. Built new pc and installed Vista from the upgrade disk. Clearly can't activate it because I have a product key for an upgrade. Bought a full version of Vista Home Premium. Tried using license key to activate and am being told I have an invalid product id key (I'm using the license key given to me from the Digital Locker thing).Dying to activate and move forward.
View 5 Replies View RelatedIn Vista x64... any problem with this? For example on a second physical disk - D: drive? Do I need to do anything special?
View 3 Replies View RelatedI had to reinstall Vista due to malware that I could not get off my computer. I could not do a repair, and now Vista is new on my system. The problem is that I now cannot activate it, and I get a notice that says that I need to enter a new number. I do not think that I need to, but I don't know how to reactivate. I called Microsoft, but the person (honestly) hung up on me.
View 5 Replies View RelatedI've got a new Dell laptop that came with bundled McCaffrie (sp?) AV and firewall. I want to install NOD32, and it's my understanding that I have to unistall the existing AV first. do I activate the new firewall (Windows) before or after I install NOD32? I am obviously new and clueless to computers and security issues.
View 4 Replies View Relatedwhere to go to activate vista?
View 4 Replies View RelatedIf i have a computer without an OS, can i use an "anytime upgrade" disk to install vista?
View 5 Replies View Relatedi have a maxtor 80gig hd which i placed into an external enclosure. It works fine in xp, but it is dynamic in disk management and i have to activate it everytime in disk management i connect it When i connect it to my vista based laptop computer (dell m1330) it will read as usb device connected, i can find it on disk management as "dynamic" (not foreign) but i cannot activate it. The only options it gives when i right click are: convert to basic disk ( i think its that or "format drive"), options or help. It wont let me activate it? i dont want to do the first option as i will lose lots of data??
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have a Sony Vaio VGC-LA1. Originally it was running Windows XP Media Centre 2005. I upgraded it to Vista Home Premium using a Vista Express Upgrade Disc sent to me from Sony. this included all the relevant updated drivers and applications. A few weeks ago the HDD died and had to be replaced. I've reinstalled XP from my recovery disc, then upgraded again to Vista using Vista Express Disc. However I can't activate Vista as it says its already in use and I require another license. How can I activate it?
View 9 Replies View RelatedChanged my old IDE CDRW/DVDR reader for a brand new DVDRW one (SATA), and I changed my CPUcooler ( had to remove all cords/connectors and replugg them again).Now when I boot up I got a "3Day remaining to Activate your Vista", and I have filled both my HDD's, I have ALOT of important infomration, family photos etc on my C: and I didn't change battery on the mainboard! ( I'm building computers as a hobby and i'v built over 10 systems, never seen this. OEM is bound to the mainboard, NOT THE DVD-RW unit
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have a computer I bought factory refurbished from a popular on-line retailer. I have a sticker on the side of the case with the product key on it. It is the official sticker with 5 groups of 5 letters and numbers. However, I ran SIW to check the numbers and they are different! What if I ever need this key? I guess the one SIW gives me is right but I don't know how to proceed. Have you heard of this? Is the one inside Windows from SIW correct? Here's what Brink posted on his tutorial. I followed these directions to check product key. It's not the product ID in control panel>system....that would be my first thought. Product Key Number I also ran this one and got the same thing as SIW gave me.
View 4 Replies View RelatedThere is a link for activities on the Registry for XP and previous Windows, but I cannot find one for Vista. Will someone (with more knowhow than I) please advise me either what is the link, or tell me how to make a backup of the Registry. If I make a backup and then whilst removing unwanted files make a mistake, how do I activate the Backup? Will the activation of backup also restore the removed files?
View 9 Replies View RelatedI just applied SP1 to Vista Business 32 bit. It's now requiring me to Activate Windows and says that the activation key that it grabbed from my machine was already in use. DUH!!!!!! No kidding....I only have 1 Vista Business computer and only one key. What gives? Found this on the KB articles: Cause 1: Changes to hardware or to hardware device drivers are detected. Part of the Windows Genuine process requires that you reactivate your computer when certain hardware is changed or when certain hardware device drivers are changed. Windows Vista Service Pack 1 may update some installed device drivers. Therefore, you may be prompted to activate Windows Vista again. I can understand that....but it still will NOT allow me to activate my computer!!!!
View 9 Replies View RelatedI have Windows Vista Home Premium 64 Bit OEM(not the royalty ones locked by DELL HP etc). I want to install a New graphics Card and also 2GB RAM to my System. An Extra HDD will be added by me later. Now the question is that will I have to Activate Vista again after Installing the New Graphics Card and 2GB RAM?
View 6 Replies View RelatedIf I buy a full copy of any version of Vista for personal use, how many computers may I activate it on?
View 9 Replies View RelatedAnytime I do any major hardware upgrade on my computer, I reinstall Vista so I don't have conflicting drivers causing problems. I've had to do that 3 times in the past 7 months or so. (Been rigorously upgrading my computer, lol) This past time when I installed a new motherboard, it wouldn't let me activate over the internet. I had to go thru the task of calling MS for activation. Now is this going to be a problem for me down the road some. Are they going to say,"Nope we're not activating your product because we suspect you're installing vista on multiple computers" Which is completely untrue. I know I'm going to reinstall again at least once by the end of the year when I get my i7 processor, new mobo and ram. I really don't want to spend another 300 dollars on Vista Ultimate because MS won't activate my current copy of it.
View 5 Replies View RelatedMy Disk is split into 2 partitions, Vista (C: ) and Data (E, each is about 70 Gb. I do not use the Data partition. I want to delete it and allow Vista(C to use all 140 Gb. The Help pages suggest that if I delete (or reduce the size of) "Data", the free space becomes unallocated? Can I repartition the disk to allow Vista C: to acces all 140 Gb?
View 9 Replies View RelatedI need to replace my wife's motherboard, and I am trying to minimize the amount of change. She is currently running XP, but the hardware is old enough that I cannot simply swap the MBs, because a new board will need a different HAL. I was thinking about installing XP and migrating applications. I was wondering what would happen if I cloned her disk to a SATA disk and installed a Vista upgrade on top of the XP disk. I would run setup and provide the appropriate drivers at the F6 prompt. She has used Vista on occasion when we are out-of-town. I have a separate userID on my laptop that is configured to look as much as possible like XP. The question is whether a Vista upgrade would work on top of an XP image that used a lot of older hardware.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have hp laptop with Vista Home Premium (OEM) installed. I've made Recovery Disks using the Recover Manager. I wish to have a clean install of Vista instead of using the Recovery Disks. I've read previous threads but I have to say I am only getting more confused.
- Can I perform clean install of my Vista OEM?
- Can I use any copy of Vista OEM cd and use the Product Key sticked behind my laptop?.........
I am running Vista Home Premium and want to do a "repair install." I have an OEM DVD with Vista. I have performed the repair process in the past (I think it was called Upgrade), but now that I have installed SP1, it won't work. I slipstreamed a DVD with SP1 according to the tutorial, but it still indicates that the existing version of Vista is newer than the one on the slipstreamed DVD and says that the upgrade functionality is disabled.
I noticed on the tutorial that you need a Retail version of Vista to slipstream with SP1. Is the OEM version different than the Retail version? Is that why I cannot do a Repair Install?
I bought a Vista upgrade pack and formatted the hard disk for a clean install. Then the Vista upgrade disk told me it couldn't install because XP wasn't there. So I got out my XP disk and tried to reinstall that, but it won't install (apparently it's a bug that is known with this computer and many others, it needs SP2 to install, but it's a pre-SP2 XP disk). Why do Microsoft have to make it so difficult for genuine purchasers of their products?! how I can fix this? I don't need XP any more, I just want to install Vista, it should be simple...
View 7 Replies View RelatedI bought a downloaded version of Vista from Microsoft. I did not get a CD or DVD. I installed it with a dual boot putting Vista on a little partition so I could see how I liked it. No I am ready to wipe out my XP and Previous Vista and start over. However all I have is this big zip file and unpacked there is no documentation or anything for that matter on how to make a disk, or make a disk from an ISO file.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI have Vista Home Basic, and i have decided to reinstall windows, start with a clean slate so to speak. However when it reinstalled, it just installed another version of vista in the same drive. How do i clean the drive and then install windows? Giving major problems as my computer is now running on low disk space!
View 7 Replies View RelatedI have a Toshiba A205 that came with Vista installed. I’ve obtained a set of XP Toshiba recovery disks for this computer which I want to install in a dual-boot arrangement. I know how to set up the dual-boot but I am afraid to run the XP recovery disk for fear it will over-write my Vista partition (C instead of installing to the D: partition I’ve set up. how to use a Toshiba recovery disc to install to an alternate partition?
View 5 Replies View RelatedAm reinstalling Windows Vista after a virus infected my PC. I am reinstalling vista but after booting from DVD Vista does not recognise my SATA hard disk on the "Where do you want to install Windows?" screen. There are no issues with the hard disk and this happened once before but I can't remember how I solved this. My problem is the Vista installer not recognising my hard disk so I can install Vista. I have an Alienware pc with hitachi deskstar hard disk and asus a8n-sli deluxe motherboard. I have to reinstall as a virus has caused my windows explorer to malfunction and it also installed a trojan which stole my key. I have tried a couple of ASUS raid drivers via a usb hard disk with no luck. We can't find any appropriate hitachi drivers. I think this is related to the hard disk controller?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI've never really had any problems with my computer acting up. I decided to add 2GB more RAM to my system this morning. Once I finally got them in there after much prodding and force I turned on my machine only to get this dreaded error message. I made sure the cords were still connected to the hard drive. I then took the RAM that I had just added back out but the error message still persists unfortunately. I'm wondering if anyone might have a suggestion as to other techniques I can try to get my system working again. I am currently running Vista Home Premium 32bit.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI would like to check the memory for errors BEFORE I load/install Windows Vista Home Premium x64 to avoid install hang-ups. Can you make an ISO CD of this program, load it in your CD/DVD drive and check your memory for errors? I recently updated the BIOS on the board (DP35DP) and it does show all of the 4GB of Kingston ValueRam PC800 1.8v (2x2gb) installed. I have good reason to believe that it's from a respectable manufacturer. Just want to make sure the memory is good before I load up the OS.
View 9 Replies View RelatedWhen I am installing Vista 64... "Where do you want to install Windows?" - Window heading Both the HDDs come up on the screen and under 'name' heading its says.... "Disk 0 Unallocated Space" and "Disk 1 Unallocated Space". There is an option "format" but its greyed out When I select either of the HDDs there is a warning message at bottom of screen saying:"This computer's hardware may not support booting to this disk. Ensure that the disk's controller is enabled in the computer's BIOS menu.". Then when I ignore this warning and click "next" it says... "Windows is unable to find a system volume that meets its criteria for installation" Neither of my HDDs will work? Both brand new... there is something subtley wrong but I cant see it.
View 9 Replies View RelatedHere's another stupid question from yours truely.....me! I have an ancient laptop with Win 95, and my Vista desktop. I also have a parallel to serial cable, male parallel at one end and a female serial at the other end. I had read something about a Direct Cable Connection, but I didn't see certain options that were needed to use it....even then, when I tried to install that service on the laptop, it asked for the Windows install disk, which is long gone..
View 6 Replies View RelatedWith a formated hard drive on a Dell Dimension 2350, the Vista Home Premium Install Disk took eight minutes to get to the first screen. I subsequently cleaned out all cards from PCI slots and disabled everything I could in the BIOS and got the same results.
View 4 Replies View RelatedLong story short, I registered for my Windows 7 upgrade and overwritten my drive (and my restore partition) with the Windows 7 90-day trial in anticipation. problem is, it is clear that my Windows 7 upgrade kit will not be arriving and my 90-day trial is halfway done. so, I have to reinstall Vista. Unfortunately I do not have a copy of Vista because I wiped my drive and so I have to download it (TO BE ACTIVATED ON MY KEY), and I know for a fact that the generic disks for XP, Vista, and Windows 7 do not have a driver for my SATA controller. this means that I have to insert the driver onto the installation.
Since I have to insert my drive driver onto the installation media, I figure I should include drivers, and what the heck include some applications. Now, what applications do you recommend for a basic install of Windows Vista Home Premium that does not use a lot of system resources or otherwise are irrlelvent. So far I have: GO-OO: An OpenOffice clone that includes needed plugins, such as read/write docx support Microsoft Security Essentials.