If the machine came with Vista home premium, you can install ultimate with a retail disc and just add the serial and cert. The machine should already have a slic in it.. Run the slic dump tool to see if it does, or link me to a bios update download..
Actually it was a home basic, and I "foolishly' installed a pre cracked/activated ultimate version of vista. I used everest to see if it had a slic, and it does. But the serial didn't activate it. I'm guessing this is because it was shoddily precracked/activated.
I making sure the version I' downloading now is hash checked perfectly. Thanks for clearing this up for me though. One more question, since you say I can install Ultimate, does that mean this OEM serial works for all versions of vista, but only for this specific laptop?