I brought my laptop into Best Buy to have a new HD installed and a VISTA Ultimate (current OS) XP Pro dual boot setup. I have a couple of XP Pro product keys fro dead systems that they tried to use. Unfortunately they nstalled a SP3 version of XP which will not accept my earlier XP keys. How do I fix this issue short of buying a SP3 version of XP?
You wrote, "I have a couple of XP Pro product keys fro dead systems..."
If the Windows XP licenses on these dead systems are OEM licenses (in other words, if you copied the product keys from the Certificate of Authenticity [CoA] stickers affixed to these dead computers), then it is a violation of the XP End User Licensing Agreement (EULA) to move the license (in the form of the product key) to any other computer. OEM licenses for Windows are permanently maried to the computer onto which they are first installed and are not permitted to be moved to any other computer, even when the first computer dies. When the computer dies, the license dies with it.
In order to install XP onto a new computer (your laptop with Vista Ult), you would need to purchase either a new, unused OEM license for XP, or (if you have one) you would need to move an existing full retail license from the computer it's on now to the new Vista laptop. Full retail licenses for Windows can be moved from one computer to another.For great advice on all topics XP, visit http://www.annoyances.org/exec/forum/winxp
Marked as answer byDarin Smith MSWednesday, November 25, 2009 8:10 PM
