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dell laptop, vista won't activate

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Innuendo:
I have yet to see a Dell machine without a recovery partition (even when they come with discs - which I suppose they would have to supply for 2 different operating systems).-Carol Haynes (September 18, 2009, 03:30 AM)
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I just gifted someone a new Dell laptop & set it up for them. It did come with a real install disc for the OS and a recovery partition complete with the app that yells, "HEY! STOP! You should really stop and take the time now to make backup DVDs of your recovery partition."

Another reason Microsoft invalidated all those product keys one sees on the sides/bottoms of computers is that people would walk through stores or stroll through work & use their cell phones to take pictures of all the codes for use at home later.

Nothing is perfect, though, and every once in a while I hear about someone trying one of those codes on their PCs and it works. I guess the blacklisting procedure isn't as thorough as MS world like. One has to wonder, though, if MS doesn't intend for those codes to work why bother putting the code on the sticker to begin with? Just leave the code off and problem solved.

Edit: Cleaning up messy quoting. Bah...

app103:
I have yet to see a Dell machine without a recovery partition (even when they come with discs - which I suppose they would have to supply for 2 different operating systems).
-Carol Haynes (September 18, 2009, 03:30 AM)
--- End quote ---

I am having a DC get together at my house in December, and you are invited. If you choose to accept the invitation, while you are here I'll show you 2 Dell machines that came without recovery partitions, and even more amazing...without a preinstalled crapware bundle. Both machines are Vostro 410's purchased in October 2008 through Dell Small Business, with XP preinstalled (I went for the downgrade option) and came with 4 disks: Vista, XP, drivers, and a separate disk for monitor drivers.  ;)

nite_monkey:
Well I had the recovery partition... but it got removed (by me). I have also tried a different dell oem vista disk but it wasn't activated at startup either, so I dunno what the deal is. What is strange tho is that my xp disk does activate autimaticaly.

40hz:
What is strange tho is that my xp disk does activate autimaticaly.
-nite_monkey (September 18, 2009, 10:41 AM)
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Not really. XP is XP - and Vista is Vista.

The folks who like to play games with Microsoft have gotten smarter over the years. And so has Microsoft's activation mechanisms.

It should come as no surprise Mr. Bill & Co. have gotten less and less trusting over the years. We can thank the scam artists now that we all get to experience the inconvenience and annoyance of product activation.



@nite_monkey:  So! Have you finally gotten around to giving Microsoft a call? They can get you activated pretty quickly once you talk to them...

As an aside - the sticker Windows codes on the bottom/back of computers hardly ever work these days and MS won't activate them manually either.
-Carol Haynes (September 18, 2009, 03:30 AM)
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:tellme: Wow!
I haven't ever run into that in the USA. I wonder if it's an overzealous local Microsoft policy (or senior employee) that's responsible for it where you live. Over here, Microsoft's rule has always been to give the customer the benefit of the doubt in a situation like you're describing.

Has anybody else had an experience where Microsoft refused to activate an OS reinstall from the OEM CD back to the original machine?

nite_monkey:
lol, I've been putting off calling microsoft, because I don't want to do that. I've kind of just decided to go back to xp until I can find a different true dell oem vista or 7 disk and see if it will activate. I just wish I knew why my vista disk wont activate.

One more question, is it possible to somehow get the recovery partition back? (I deleted it, and never made a backup of it, and was curious to see if that would give me an activated vista install)

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