I am trying to understand how an Acer Vista Premium License key will work with correct Acer recovery media but not with OEM Vista Premium DVD. This has nothing to do with the motherboard. It has everything to do with the OS. I bought the Acer AM5640 without windows or recovery disk. It had Acer Vista Home Premium License Key on the Side. I used my OEM Vista Home Premium DVD to load windows but it said license key was invalid. I sold the motherboard from the machine and replaced it with an ECS motherboard with same chipset. After trying several things I mentioned in another post, I ordered the recovery media from Acer and loaded it on the Acer Computer (with ECS Motherboard purchased off Ebay installed- NOT AN ACER Board -). After installing recovery media, I used the Acer OemAct Vista Home premium number on the side of the case and it worked and activated. This tells me (1) in this case the motherboard has nothing to do with this License Key. (2) The key is specific to the Acer Recovery Media Question? Is there some file in the Vista Installation that says accept only Keys starting with K or P for this computer? I would love to figure out how the Vista knew not to allow this valid key to work with an oem Home Premium version of Vista. When I called Microsoft, they also gave me another key for this computer that came back invalid with my oem install but I bet it would work with this acer recovery installation. I would love to figure out what mods I would have to make to get this to work with OEM Vista Home Premium. Any ideas?
So you got the sticker key on the case to activate with a different board ? Did you have to phone M$ or do online activation ? As far as the key not working with original recovery could be a number of reasons. Maybe the recovery was hard coded to only accept the key used by Acer.
Yes. And using Online Activation. My problem was not really activation as much as getting the computer to recognize the number as Valid. Every time I typed it in, using an installation from a copy of Windows Vista Home Premium purchased from newegg, it would pop up a screen saying this number does not appear to be Valid. It would not accept the number on the initial installation so I used a boot leg number hoping to change to the acer number once Vista was loaded. Of course after Vista was loaded, I still couldn't change the number. Apparently there is some file in the Acer OEMACT Vista installation from Recovery DVD that says "It is OK accept numbers beginning with KCMX6 or something." Cause once I went to change product key and typed the number in I no longer got the message saying "This number does not appear to be Valid" For Recap: Using Home Premium OEM System Builder Edition from Newegg, The Acer OEMACT number received a message saying "The number you typed does not appear to be a valid Home Premium Number" With The Acer Recovery DVD for Am5640 After loading the Disk I clicked on change number, typed the number from the side of the case, It accepted the number and activated without a call.
I wasnt expecting it to be that easy. I know for XP the sticker keys dont support online activation and must be phone activated which lends many questions by M$ to verify hardware, etc. I assumed they were already doing the same with Vista from the start as this became a issue with XP as people were using keys from the COA stickers they see elsewhere to activate there machines at home. Guess they never learn lol Dont expect it to always be that easy in the future.
Where to Look? How did they make the Acer OeMACT Vista Home Premium Sticker only work with their Recovery DVD?
I been reading your posts about the trouble with the Acer 5640 and going through hassles with getting the install disk. I happened to find your message via Google and was hoping you still had the discs and would be willing to either sell, copy and sell, or rent them to me because I have the same problem only this time, Acer doesn't make the restore disks any more for this computer. Please let me know if you can help - just send me a private message on here. Thanks! Erin