Activating Vista w/o key

Let me make this as short as possible. I acquired an old sony laptop with XP on it. The backup copy was on the hard drive. After reinstalling XP the pc did not work. Rather than fight with it I took out a disc I had from an old retired pc of mine and loaded that windows onto the laptop.. This was a Dell disc that I own that has Vista.. (all my documentation was tossed years ago) The laptop is running great. I have 14 days to activate and no number. I tried all sorts of things online from key finders to even number that were published with no luck. I called microsoft and they are happy to take $45 to activate it.. I have owned at least 8 computers all with bought windows along with this disc I used... but now I don't know what to do. Buy a new copy off ebay.. and even if I were to do that would I still need to install that copy wiping out all I have done on this pc to date ?

Discussing piracy and such on these forums is very frowned upon.

what piracy... this is my disc. One of many I have bought over the years.

I must have misread a bit. Anyway, the Sony laptop had XP on it, and didn't come with a license for Vista. And you cannot move a Dell OEM license from one machine to another, so you still don't actually have a license for Vista for that machine.

When you mentioned "key finders", i believe I read that as key generators. Hence the reason I suspected something along the lines of pirating the software. Sorry, my bad.

pparks1 said:

I must have misread a bit. Anyway, the Sony laptop had XP on it, and didn't come with a license for Vista. And you cannot move a Dell OEM license from one machine to another, so you still don't actually have a license for Vista for that machine.

When you mentioned "key finders", i believe I read that as key generators. Hence the reason I suspected something along the lines of pirating the software. Sorry, my bad.

Click to expand...

Hi there
you can use a LEGITIMATE program to determine the key of the RUNNING machine's software

Download Belarc form this site (Free -- no ad/spyware)

Belarc Advisor - Free Personal PC Audit, for software, hardware and security configuration information on your computer. Software license management, IT asset management, cyber security audits, and more.

Will give you the keys of the current running Windows OS and much more -- it only works on a RUNNING machine so you can't use it to get keys off DVD's you may have got off e-bay.

It takes a little while to run so be patient with it.

Cheers
jimbo

The OEM version install disc, from a Dell (or any brand PC) is only legally licensed for the PC it was delivered with.