What can I say? It must be yet another thing that is different in your part of the world. There are no edition specific slic tables, and OEM media is useful mainly for hardware drivers.
We use mainly Acer and IBM Laptops because of an excellent service. Secondly, we're using legal software within my own company and our customers only. In case of the used version of Windows, if pre-installed by supplier, we've to use the same software version as described on the COA Sticker. The example I wrote about of the Acer One, was a notebook of a friend whom I helped. On that machine I couldn't install Ultimate (using an Acer Original Recovery DVD for Ultimate) without the BIOS Mod, it simply didn't worked. The original BIOS had the SLIC and Cert already installed, but worked with Ultimate. Using the professional Version, special if it's a VL, that's a different 'game'! Again, I didn't have much knowledge about pirated OS'es, using Originals only. As Company I could deduct all from Tax, so no problems about finances.
@ pisthai, once again you start confusion, machine as you said came with slic 2.1 but would not install from recovery dvd. That does happen some, HP machines are fine examples serial numbers i,e tattooed into dmi area. As for original recovery dvd, that is usually for individual machines may cover a few models if you are lucky unlike manufacturer installation dvd which is just os without all the bloatware. Personally unlike vista since windows 7 most machines I have worked on did not come with recovery media, but with recovery partition with the option to make recovery disks.
I clearly wrote that the machine were coming with Home Basic, the Recovery DVD were Ultimate! Why's that confusing? @urie: The Recovery DVD were for Windows 7 Ultimate only and not any other version. That Acer One Netbook of my friend came with Home Basic and my friend had deleted the Recovery Partition (which is accessible via F10, if activated that in BIOS) so it were not possible to create an recovery media with that machine. The Recovery DVD's I have from Acer, I bought from them in their Thailand Office in Bangkok because we mainly using Acer Laptops (and IBM) because of their excellent service. The Version I have from them are: Professional, Enterprise and Ultimate, but Starter and Home versions, the later we never used. Is that now clear enough for you? If not, please contact me via PM and ask your questions. Thanks.
@ Get off your high horse is a saying here. I do not need to P.M. you and also I do not even want to. I only stated a fact if it was oem:slp with slic 2.1 then you could use installation dvd if they were available but I did state most systems did come with recovery partition ( no media but with the option to make recovery media.) And as far as I can see on this forum and others most would rather install OS only without all the bloatwere that is not needed
What high horse? Fact is that you seems never had an Acer Recovery DVD in your Hands because if, you had known that there isn't any Bloatware on it, which is exactly the point why I bought those DVD's from Acer instead of using to build some from the HD Recovery Partition of an new Laptop! And just to tell, the oem:slp with slic 2.1 just limiting the installation of the OS to those version the SLP is for! Or am I wrong? And if I'm not wrong, how I could install an Ultimate on an machine with an Home Basic SLP?
Just to report back... My friend's laptop is a Dell XPS15z with a genuine W7 Home Premium sticker. Anyway I installed W7x64 Ultimate. The Slic Toolkit indicated that a 2.1 slic was already installed, so I activated using the OpaTool only (no loader or bios mod). Thank you all very much for your help.