Hi, i got a Acer TravelMate 6460 and wanna do a clean install of WinXP. The WinXP OEM license is preactived and i can`t get the installation files out of the PQSERVICE parition. Of course its important for me to stay legit and to make the installation valid and geunine. So i came up with an idea to make use of the license which came with the notebook but without using the disk images from acer which got a lot of stuiff installed, i don`t want on the system. I downloaded the Windows XP SP3 VLK iso and installed it. I couldn`t use the original oem product key from the travelmate, the installation rejected the key and asked for a vlk key. I used a vlk key as a temporary measure and changed the product key with the microsoft product key changer after the system booted for the first time. Then i used the OEMBIOS changer tool to switch from VLK to a OEM installation. ( I did a backup of the original OEMBIOS files and restored them) After a genuine check i got the message that my installation winxp is valid and genuine. Beside the fact that this was a little bit tricky to prevent the installation of the d2d images, i would like to know, if its a totally valid and legal way to use my license with this method to achieve a absolut clean xp installation. I know, noone probably cares because WinXP is EOL and all that but i wanna make sure everything is allright before i give the notebook back to his owner. Thank you for your help in advance, and thanks for all the helpful tools you provide in here. ^^
Your probably not OK........Legally .......But you should be OK. I don't think that M$ is even checking XP anymore. You probably could have left the VLK key in. I have been running a VLK key now for over 3 years and have not gotten shut down for a while. But there is always a chance of it happening. That said if this is a customers computer and he gets shut down..... well you take it from there!!
It will be genuine, VLK will not be genuine. May not be "shut down", but updating would be a PITA. If you used the OEMBIOS files and the serial, the install will be as legit as you can get, without using the image in the restore partition. Even if they checked it, however they would do that, it would show genuine and life would go on..VLK is another animal and you take the risk...
I guess i can take the resposibility for what i am doing now, i just feel a little bit more confident now, thank you for all your help
I use to get caught 2 or 3 times a year and get shut down. But like I said for around 3 years now I have not gotten caught. Maybe I just have the perfect keyor maybe M$ does not care anymore. I don't know. I take every critical update out there and I am still running. I just downloaded all the stuff from M$ this morning to run XP on Win7. They made me go through a validation check by downloading their tool. Passed with flying colors. Anyways if I do get caught again I will be up and running in 5 min. I have all the tools to do it.
@ oldsh_t, believe me you are lucky M$ does check and is still blacklisting VLK keys. I still get machines from friends who get flagged as non genuine using VLK keys and If possible I convert to OEM:SLP
@ urie Well I guess I am just lucky. Like I said before there is always a chance that I get shut down, but for now I will run with what I have and hope for the best!