I hope laying out this experience will not only bring me an answer, but will help someone else avoid this! I have W7 and Vista in a dual boot, and cannot activate both systems at once. As soon as I activate one, the other becomes unactivated. (SLIC issue... pls bear with me!) Background: Bought laptop with Vista and free W7 upgrade last summer. Since I built the Vista system up for months before recently installing W7, I want to keep Vista for awhile until my W7 system gets built up. (And might keep it beyond, as it is handy having a dual boot in case one OS goes south, you can boot into the other to troubleshoot, clean, fix, etc.) So Vista was pre-activated by Acer and I used ABR to backup the activation files before wiping Vista and reinstalling from my own nLite custom Vista disc. Then restored activation files. This was all last summer and went peachy. A few weeks ago I moved Vista to D:\ (and though I had the W7 upgrade disc), used an RTM with a good hash to install W7 in C:\. Everything booted fine as expected, with W7 unactivated, no product key or cert. Used Daz Loader to install an emulated SLIC 2.1, cert and Acer OEM key. Worked beautifully for W7, but broke my Vista activation, as the emulated SLIC loads into memory whether you boot into Vista or W7. (Wish it could load based on the choice at the multiboot screen!) So the emulated 2.1 SLIC does not match Vista's 2.0 cert, and it gives you the ole "this copy of Vista is not genuine" and "you must activate today." Reading more here, I saw in the Repository it said to run the Daz loader inside Vista too, if this happens. Tried it in regular and in safe modes, and I tried the different loader modes too, but it did no good. Vista would not activate. I uninstalled the Daz Loader and activation was restored in Vista, but of course W7 was now unactivated. Came back here for more reading. Found that loaders generally don't work in a dual boot (or often don't) and that I needed to do a hard mod -- that the 2.1 SLIC is backwards compatible with Vista and both OSs could be activated this way. Found a great BIOS mod by weinter (thanks weinter!) and flashed. So now BIOS has a 2.1 SLIC. I boot into W7 and manually install the cert and OEM key, and it is again activated and peachy.... BUT... Vista activation broke again. Was suggested I install a 2.1 cert in Vista (to match the 2.1 SLIC in the BIOS, but I thought Vista needed 2.0 and if it saw a 2.1 SLIC in the BIOS it would accept it, if 2.1 is "backwards compatible" with 2.0, but I guess it doesn't work that way). I tried this using the same acer 2.1 cert I used to activate W7. Copied to Vista's root and ran command as admin. Got the following error after a few moments: Script: c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs Line: 1648 Char: 9 Error: the data is invalid Code: 8007000D Source: (null) Dead end. I thought maybe if I reinstalled Vista in D:\ **with the new BIOS and it's 2.1 SLIC** that would do the trick. Even though that meant losing ALL MY PROGRAMS in Vista, I was now DETERMINED to get both OSs activated out of principle! I install Vista in D:\ and boot into it, and it's activated pretty as you please... BUT... W7 activation is now broke!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Why? Because installing Vista in D:\ made Windows run it's OWN loader, that loads a 2.0 SLIC into memory!! How do I know? Because I ran SLIC DUMP in W7, and it showed a 2.0 SLIC and no cert.... even though I have a modded BIOS with a 2.1 SLIC and proper cert!! I thought maybe Vista actually modified the BIOS, so I flashed the mod again. Booted to W7... still unactivated. Ran SLIC DUMP... showed 2.0 SLIC!! ARGH!! If a 2.1 SLIC is backwards compatible, why would Vista need to install an emulated 2.0 cert. AND... more importantly, how can Vista's install routine not see I have W7 in C:\ !!?? The emulated script should only run if I choose Vista from the multi-boot menu, but it seems to run at boot, regardless... and totally screws up W7. So I wiped the virgin Vista install, since it did no good, and restored my built-up Vista OS back to D:\, and my activated W7 back to C:\. I have not booted to Vista cause when I do, it will say it is not activated and not genuine. Can someone please tell me what I might try next on the Vista OS to make it play nice with the 2.1 SLIC in the BIOS ??? This is like activation ping pong... I get one activated and the other breaks... I know it's the SLIC issue, but there has to be a way to fix this. If I really need to install a 2.1 SLIC in Vista, then can anyone tell me why I got the error I did? And can I install that cert into Vista through a command prompt running from W7, so that I don't have to boot into Vista and break it? I feel like if I don't break it first (as the image that is there is activated, but with a 2.0 SLIC that will clash with my BIOS, should I boot into it)... I feel like if I can install the cert from outside of Vista, then boot into it with the right fix, all will be well. Any advice welcome and THANKS FOR READING.
I didn't read all of your post as I am old and cannot afford the time. Get 7 activated and then reboot into Vista and manually insert a Vista Cert and key - note most certs are for Vista and 7 - the keys are different. There is no reason this simple solution will not work.
Zepp, 1) I dont think that there is anybody on this forum who is running oem activated vista and oem activated win7 in a dual boot setup. If there is somebody, pl. come forward and tell us how you did it, would love to hear it. 2) I admire your principles but noticed that your machine came with vista preinstalled so there should be a COA sticker at the bottom. So one thing that could be done is that you oem activate win7 with a bios mod (the usual thing), then activate vista on the other partition with the COA key. You may have to call MS for that and tell them your install messed or something like that. Not sure whether it'll work cos your hardware id may be stored in their databases somewhere when you validate win7.
I do... although using a bios mod and not a loader... whats the problem? Just use the Oem Certificate matching the 2.1 SLIC in the BIOS on both installations
If you are running Vista and W7 in a dual boot, you just became my new best friend. I am also using a hard mod w/ 2.1 SLIC for W7. And as stated, I tried a gazillion times -- manually and with OPA and other tools -- to install the matching Acer 2.1 cert in Vista. I keep getting this error: Script: c:\windows\system32\slmgr.vbs Line: 1648 Char: 9 Error: the data is invalid Code: 8007000D Source: (null) Mind you, it's the same cert that is successfully working in W7. @venu... Yes, I have a COA, but will not activate by phone. It is against my religion to support M$ in this gawd-awful activation scheme that doesn't "reduce piracy" one iota because everyone is forced to buy an OS anyway! SEVERAL TIMES OVER! And this Vista install was genuinely activated by Acer. If I cannot get it to work, I will wipe Vista before I call M$... and load Linux or OSX instead. But I don't give up easy.
lol and what suppose to be this big of a deal? there is zero, nada, zilch reasons that once you activate Win7, using same cert and Vista key would not work on Vista as well... I used to have this... for some testing half of year ago and yes with bios mod, but this doesnt mean loader does not work, because there is ZERO reason why loader would not, if you already manage to activate one system, except user being dumb. And under this goes scrwing up boot procedure, so only 1 system is activated, then you have using wrong slic to beging with, 2.1 can activate both Vista and 7, 2.0 can only activate Vista, then one of "those" reasons is also using incorrect cert and keys and then it basicaly ends. thats not possible, except you having Vista instalation screwed up OR tool that you are inserting cert/key is screwed up. Do it manualy, screw tools.
...except for the one I came across. I did do it manually. As stated several times now. I installed it manually in W7 after my BIOS mod, (which worked great), then booted into Vista and tried installing manually and got the error I wrote here. A gazillion times. The Vista install was fine. Nothing screwy with it.
You can not... besides your Vista is located on D:\ if i read everything correctly, so what point does it have to change the registry value to C:\??? You are just asking for problems by doing this. Probably by this change it uses the Windows 7 slmgr.vbs instead of the Windows Vista slmgr.vbs
Thing is, if there is something wrong and it does seems to be seriously wrong, clean install is the way to go to make sure YOUR "backup" is not already screwed up when you restore it. If i would notice this before i would suggest this... restoring Vista image from 5 years ago (exaduration) when you bought laptop, certanly isnt way to solve problems, but its obviously good way to create them Get your self fresh Vista SP2, install it, install Win7, install certs/key and then if both systems are not activated, then complain.
As stated in the OP, I already did a clean install of Vista, even though it defeated my purpose of keeping the system I had built up for the last several months intact. When a clean install created other problems I put my image of Vista back. No, I bought the laptop 8 months ago, and the image I restored is made from last week before I modded my BIOS, when Vista was happily genuinely activated, and W7 was still unactivated and newly installed as of a few weeks. Now since I modded my BIOS, W7 is happily activated, and Vista is &ucked.
@venu Tried the MS fix... took about 40 minutes but when it finished, still no joy. Same "data is invalid" error. Will Google the error and other possible solutions tomorrow. The only thing that's keeping this from working is not being able to install that darn cert. So frustrating! Thanks for trying to help!
Once again, read up on how to successfully dual boot Windows 7 and Vista... For instance, i cropped my Windows Vista partition making space for a new Windows 7 primary partition. Then i made my Vista partition in-active and made the new primary partition active The i installed Windows 7 on the new active primary partition, this way both installations are using C:\ as %SystemDrive%, eg: Vista Partition is automatically assigned a different drive letter when boot in Windows 7, If i Boot into Windows Vista the Vista Partition is assigned the C:\ drive letter and the Windows 7 partition is assigned a different drive-letter
Mine operates exactly the same. C:\ is active, primary. W7 there. Vista in D:\, a logical partition. When I boot into either OS, it shows as being in C and the other as being in D... which is a feature of Windows starting with Vista.