Dell 1720 - How to activate Windows 7?

Hi,

I've owned a Dell Inspiron 1720 for a couple of years. It came with Vista installed, but I've been using an XP/Ubuntu combo instead.

I've successfully installed the 32-bit version of Windows 7 via USB stick. I didn't enter a product key and deselected 'auto updates' during installation. I've now set the Windows updater to 'notify my of updates but do not download or install'. I haven't connected to the internet yet with the Windows 7 installation.

My installation has 30 days remaining.

I've read a few posts, but I'm a bit confused as to the next step in getting things 'working' properly.

1) As my PC came with Vista installed, does that mean the bios is set up to accept OEM versions/product keys of Windows 7?

2) If so, do I just need to get hold of the Dell OEM product key, enter that and activate?

If not, what is the next step in activating Windows 7?

A friend ordered a Dell Outlet PC with Ubuntu (Vostro 1015). Will he need to update the bios before installing/activating Windows 7?

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OK, I've used the SLIC Toolkit V3.2 and it reports the 'SLIC Dump Status' as 'Dump OK! (DELLM08_V2.0)'. I think this means that I need to update my bios to V2.1? Anybody know what my next step should be?

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I've successfully flashed the bios using a windows bios flash utility posted in the 'Dell - Phoenix Manual Mod Thread' (post #2303). SLIC Toolkit V3.2 now reports my bios as 'Dump OK! (DELLM09_V2.1)'.

Hopefully, that means I just need to activate. I'll check the sticky's and report back.

 

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Hi,

Thanks for the advice, that worked a treat and windows is now reporting itself as 'activated'. I'm currently downloading the available updates. I've deselected the 'WGA' style update.

Hopefully, Windows will update successfully and stay activated.

A big thankyou to all the people involved in this excellent site and especially DARKOR04 & sangalaviral for taking the time to help.

Rob