Reinstall question

[leadboots5]

will an oem cdkey(this one is from hp, full of bloat) work with a retail cd(bloatwareless)? if you answer yes, or yes and you just have to do something extra to make it work then you can skip the long winded rest of this post.

Alright, the girlfriend has a laptop from hp and as such as all the bloatware anyone would ever need. She has been having some problems so I would like to reinstall her vista, but i think she only has the recovery cd or w/e. I have only played with XP and have stayed away from vista since no one i really know has purchased a new computer. I am wondering what my options are. I want to use her cdkey that came with her laptop, but never install the bloatware. im fairly tech savy and have done alot with xp and am not beyond reading guides or anything like that.

My options as I see them, but I just know know what is actually physically possible(as in wont reject the legit cdkey):

1. take the recovery cd and use vlite or some other means to remove the oem programs/crap

2. take a retail vista cd(i can probably find a friend or something) of the same version and have the oem ckdey work with it

3. your grand solution.

[dlsayremn]

Her OEM key WILL Not work with retail version disc.

Depending upon version, Visat w/SP1 will cost $240 - $300.

Make back ups of all her personal files, then use the OEM discs.

Just spent about 15 hours redoing my computer because the HD failed and I had no back ups. Got a new, bigger HD, External HD and Acronis.

Compared to the 3 hours for reinstalling all the needed updates (comp is 22 months old), 52 just to get to SP1, manually removing unnecessary programs is a breeze.

Edited January 9, 2009 by dlsayremn

[redxii]

Yes, and there should be a sticker on the laptop with the cd-key you can use to install Vista. XP requires different media for different types of licenses, Vista doesn't except for 32-bit/64-bit. You likely have 32-bit.

Edited January 9, 2009 by redxii

[jrf2027]

The Vista OEM key will work with a retail disc. Please disregard any advice to the contrary. However, if you use the OEM key from the Certificate of Authenticity, you will have to call in to activate it.

If you would like to preserve the current OEM preactivation before wiping out the current Vista installation, therefore eliminating the need to call in to activate, please review orev's post from notebookreview.com:

Clean Vista install WITH NO ACTIVATION

If the computer is an HP, it has the OEM preactivation certificate. You can simply back up the preactivation certificate, install Vista from a clean source (yes, that includes a retail disc) without entering the product key at the time of installation, then reinstall the preactivation after installation is complete. I've done this countless times without any problems.

BTW...there really is no such thing as a "retail" disc or an "upgrade" disc with Vista. It's not like XP where the Retail disc was different from the Upgrade disc, the OEM disc, and the Volume disc. There are only four different types of discs for Vista:

32-bit Vista gold (no SP's)

32-bit Vista with SP1 integrated

64-bit Vista gold

64-bit Vista with SP1 integrated

You can install 64-bit Vista with a 32-bit key, and vice versa. However, you must make sure you install the correct version of Vista - if you have a Home Basic key, you can only reinstall Home Basic. (This even applies to the N versions - I tried installing Business N with a Business key and they are different!)

Edited January 9, 2009 by jrf2027

[nitroshift]

The Vista OEM key will work with a retail disc. Please disregard any advice to the contrary. However, if you use the OEM key from the Certificate of Authenticity, you will have to call in to activate it. [...]

Yes...

If the computer is an HP, it has the OEM preactivation certificate. You can simply back up the preactivation certificate, install Vista from a clean source (yes, that includes a retail disc) without entering the product key at the time of installation, then reinstall the preactivation after installation is complete.

...and yes.

[leadboots5]

Thank jou jrf2027 for the very informative post. really you answered perfectly and thank you for the link.

[dlsayremn]

Thanks for correcting me. Was repeating info that I had read on another forum, can't remember which, about Vista rtail discs being tied to license key so would not work with OEM. Hopefully he can get one with SP1 and bypass 72 Updates.