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Windows 7 Licensing Question

  • 06-06-2011 11:16PM
    #1
    Zapho
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,268 ✭✭✭


    Hey lads - a mate of mine asked me to fix his laptop. Turned out the hard drive had failed with no chance of recovery.

    I've put a new hard drive into it and I want to install windows 7 (which it originally had) but he doesn't have his recovery disks and naturally I don't have access to the recovery partition on the old drive as its totalled.

    Is it possible to just get an after-market copy of windows 7 home premium (by borrowing the DVD from someone) and use the OEM win 7 license number stuck on the bottom of his laptop to activate it? This kinda thing would have worked with windows XP, but I hear that microsoft have gotten a lot stickier about licenses since windows 7.

    If anyone could shed light on this, that would be great. It would save me the hassle of finding someone with a win 7 home DVD and wasting time installing it if its not going to work!


Comments

  • #2
    Lazarus2.0
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,772 ✭✭✭Lazarus2.0


    I'm pretty sure it wont activate successfully unless you use an OEM disk of the same brand e.g. a Dell disk wont work with HP etc ..

    What make is the laptop ?


  • #3
    Zapho
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,268 ✭✭✭Zapho


    nessyguin wrote: »
    I'm pretty sure it wont activate successfully unless you use an OEM disk of the same brand e.g. a Dell disk wont work with HP etc ..

    What make is the laptop ?

    Mmmm, thats what I was afraid of. Its a Dell Inspiron 1545. I suppose I could just request that Dell send me out a copy of the recovery disk?


  • #4
    TheBoffin
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 434 ✭✭TheBoffin


    Hi Zapho,

    I would recommend you contact Dell on this matter. The OEM disk is required to use the OEM key on the laptop.

    It would be of no use to contact Microsoft as they are not the vendor, they will point you to Dell

    The other alternative option is to purchase a copy of 7 and install the consumer version.

    ;)


  • #5
    Zapho
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 1,268 ✭✭✭Zapho


    TheBoffin wrote: »
    Hi Zapho,

    I would recommend you contact Dell on this matter. The OEM disk is required to use the OEM key on the laptop.

    It would be of no use to contact Microsoft as they are not the vendor, they will point you to Dell

    The other alternative option is to purchase a copy of 7 and install the consumer version.

    ;)

    Hey, thanks for clearing this up Boffin! I am hoping not to have to buy a consumer version - so fingers crossed, dell will ship out the recovery cds.

    Cheers!


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