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I installed vista on my pc from a disk my friend had and I thought it just updated it from xp to vista. now when I started up today it said my vista product key was invalid. so I went to the boot selection screen with f12 on the startup and i selected boot from cd because I put my xp operating system disk in and it doesnt install. it says booting from disk and goers to the vista registration screen again. doeas anyone know what I should do?
asfagfgdsghsdg
Without a unique Vista key not used by anyone else your asefagfsadf
PC is ruined beyond repair. There is nothing you can do except to nuke the HD.i_XpUser
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If there is any valuable data on the hard drive. You can remove the drive and connect it on another system to try and recover the data.
Then download and run Delpart. It will remove everything on your hard drive. Then the XP install should work.
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I doubt the XP will work again. If I remember it correctly, M$ warned that if you use the upgrade Vista, the product key for XP will no longer be valid.
i_XpUser
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Yep, that is my understanding a Vista Upgrade Key is tied to the XP Key, if Vista is nuked so is XP. But we could be wrong, so much for piracy ??
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How could that possibly be accomplished. If you wipe the drive clean, how could the fact that you installed vista be detected?
I could see how you might have a problem with activation. But I don't understand how the product Key could be affected.
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Perhaps this will help ...
http://keznews.com/2202_Vista_upgra...
P.S. It's spelled out somewhere in Vista EULA that only IP lawyers understand.
i_XpUser
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HellHound, I wonder if you are watching the screen close enough when trying to install XP. When you boot from the XP CD you have to watch the screen for a message that says 'Hit any key to boot from the CD' or something similar. You only have a couple of seconds to hit a key, or it will boot from the hard drive.
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Thanks XpUser. That says:
"The key will be invalidated, preventing activation. "I can see where that's possible. I mis-interpreted your post as saying that you couldn't 'install' XP because the product key wouldn't work.
So if you install Vista and don't like it, you are stuck with it. That seems really unreasonable of M$.
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Sad to say so, it's the way things are with M$. They penalize you for buying the cheaper Vista upgrade to XP.
i_XpUser
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I guess another reason might be to fight piracy. It would probably discourage people from giving their old XP CDs to friends with win9X systems.
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Yup!
It's all legal disclosure - the XP key is not exactly nuked for life. But it is hoped that the disclosure & the way in which it is worded would more or less preempt any thoughts of "casual piracy" by home users, just as max00 hinted.
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so I am completely screwed then.... fuking microsoft. so my only options are to clean my hd or buy vista.
asfagfgdsghsdg
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Did you activate Vista?
If you didn't, you might be able to go back to XP.Of course if you installed Vista, you have to wipe your drive to install XP. You can't install an older OS over a newer one.
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 Fireworks MX
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Uninstall XP problems
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