I have been working on reviving this gateway 4300 desktop for 5 days now.The hd that had factory vista on it died. At first I couldnt get vista to install..finally got it installed from some iso i found online. I have the oem product key located on the side of the box..have tried that key several times to activate and authenticate vista..to no avail. So after some time spent looking at various computer help forums..I came to a link here for installing the correct oem certificate. DID that. THEN tried plugging in the gateway oem slp key from a link on this forum and it still didnt work..said it does not appear to be a valid vista activation code. This is getting quite frustrating and i've been at it all day. My day started with being on hold with microsoft for phone activation..only to find they couldnt help me at all..wanted me to buy a new key for damn $99. OR contact gateway.. I got this box from a friend that had purchased it new. He did not have the disks or anything that came with it.... Really, my goal is just to get vista running and activated...and of course not spend ANY money, as I shouldn't have to since the box is legit and has product key. Any ideas, or pointers in the right direction would be great! IF there is any more information i can supply, I will sure try! Thanks folks JBD
Update: I stumbled onto the sub forum for windowsloader, is that what I need to do? and how? Also, does windows loader remove the other windows oem cert I tried? The one I tried did not work. NOR did the oem key for gateway..that just said invalid EDIT:Currently running vista 64 bit sp2 Thanks folks JBD
it sure did!!!! is this a permanent fix? OR will i have trouble down the line...regardless...happy as hell for now. I may even go thank daz directly in his thread...this was my last hope and it worked...HOORAH!!