It has taken me over a month for Dell to ship my Windows 7 Ultimate DVD and now UPS have lost the package by delivering it to the wrong address! I'm now trying to get a new one sent through but am sick of waiting and running the Release Candidate. Can anyone send me the link to an ISO of the exact Dell Windows 7 Ultimate ISO? I don't want a cracked version, just a copy of what I will (perhaps) one day receive from Dell! 1) Will it activate automatically based on my Bios? or 2) If it needs activation can I just postpone it for up to 90 days which should give them time to get my genuine license key to me? Thanks,
Sad Story......................Happy Ending!!!!! Dude...........You got a Dell!!! Sadly, most of these OEM providers don't send media anymore, as if it's not needed if your hard drive crashes, destroying their worthless restore partition along with it. Even sicker, what most users need to wish for is that their hard drives fail before their warranties expire. I had a friend who purchased a Dell and his hard drive failed after 4 years and change. Finding himself stuck with a new drive installed and no OS media available, he calls Dell only to find his warranty is expired, so no help was available to him. For a fee however, he could buy the disk he technically already paid for, he declined. Because of this dilemma, he thanks Dell to this day. Had it not been for Dell not giving him his licensed Windows XP media, he wouldn't have discovered the VistaLoader!!! THANKS DELL!!!!!!!!
If you look in the Official Windows 7 Repository sticky thread, there are links to OEM ISOs, they're not cracked, just install from one of them and then install the Dell certificate and SLP Key and it should activate (assuming your computer has the SLIC 2.1 info in the BIOS, which if it was one that was eligible for the free upgrade then it should have it.) *The dell OEM discs they send for the free upgrade and what they package with their computers are just regular OEM discs with the dell info, so by getting the regular OEM discs and installing the dell cert + key you get the same effect.
That's not totally true dell OS cd/dvd's are available to anyone there are request forms on dell support site even if you had misplaced them you can request another set but only once, while within warranty. Your friend should have contacted dell straight away and requested OS cd's
The machines bought with Vista does not come with a 2.1 SLIC table, so inserting a cert and using a SLP key for Windows 7 won't work. The key you get with your version on the DVD is not the SLP key, but a normal OEM license key.
Thanks for all the replies. My system is a "DELL Studio 540ST Slim Desktop". Quad core etc. It shipped during the Win 7 upgrade period so I was due for a "free" Windows 7 upgrade. I'll run the checks and have a look. The system is technically great. Beautifully built inside (first PC I've ever had that reminds me of those old Sun Sparcstations in the pizza boxes). I like it. Much more fun than building my own system with components that never work properly together. However, I would never buy Dell again. Their support is appalling. Trying to get this disk from Dell has been a frustrating marathon. Their systems offered me an upgrade to the wrong version of Windows 7 (Home, not ultimate), then their upgrade system failed, then their credit card system failed, then they delayed the shipment by 3 weeks, then UPS delivered the package to the wrong address and it is now lost. I've started the process of requesting a replacement but I'm being bounced around departments and have little hope.
My system shipped in October and the SLIC was v2.0. I installed the latest BIOS update (dated 06/04/2009) from the dell drivers page for my system and this has updated the SLIC to v2.1. Currently pulling the DVD iso down from a torrent. I'll do a diff against the DVD from Dell (if it ever arrives) and report back.
I have a funny feeling that the dvd dell will send you is just the windows 7 upgrade dvd it is like a normal OEM not OEM SLP no dell logos e.c.t on dvd. You have to activate it, my m8 got a Studio XPS 435MT and was eligible for the update, and as i said it was like a OEM dvd they sent his bios has been updated but no silc 2.1 yet for his model from dell. That is really annoying him having to activate doesn't want to try bios mod yet is waiting hopefully they will update his bios to slic 2.1
If it ever shows up, and it is indeed a regular old OEM copy and not an upgrade, Im sure theres a few of us that would be more than thankful if you post it up somewhere hehe. Ive got a 2-3 year old Latitude so Dell wont give me Win 7 and just my luck I got laid off from my university a month before we were supposed to get our VLK hehehe..
i work for a computer lab at sjsu and there was actually a repair that came in for a fresh install using the dell win7 oem disc. it was home premium 64 bit that came in a grey disc - same stamp as previous OS'es (xp pro was green, xp home was purple, vista home was blue, etc) i ripped an iso image using imgburn. turned out it was on a dual layer disc - 5.74gb total. and like Monotremata said.. it's just a regular OEM copy - full version. i forgot to take a photo of the disc itself, but if another one comes in.. i'll def take a snapshot. i'll upload a link to the iso in here after my finals. i'll keep you guys updated.
When you say regular OEM you mean OEM SLP ? i,e, if slic 2.1 in bios it will preactivate. You could just post file hashes of iso those can be checked against the ones kicking about that would let peeps know if those are genuine
Those serial numbers posted are on every Windows 7 dvd those are just the default install keys you can't activate with them. still no joy searching MD5: number but in saying that i think the dell OEM disks kicking around the net were ultimate so the hashes would be different because the ei.cfg file would have ultimate in it rather that home premium. So i think we can take it the others are genuine.