how to activate ?

Question

I have the DELL xps m1330 that came equiped with vista home premium , unfortunately someone was trying to repartition the hard drive to install multiple OS , and he destroyed the recovery partition , what i did after that is the important part , i used the xps m1330 of a friend of mine , which has the excat same hardware configuration , i used it to make a clone of the hard drive and i got the recovery partition back , the problem now is that i get the 'invalid activation key ' message , where can i find my activation key that came with my DELL and how can i use it 'if possible after what i have done ' .

mombodog · Answer

There should be a COA sticker on your PC somewhere with your Vista Key, use that one, if it fails to activate, you will have to call Microsoft to unfuddle the mess. There should be an option to activate by Phone, where it gives you the number to call.

"what have I done?"

You installed your friends key (clone process) on your PC, not allowed, considered software piracy although unintentional.

http://www.windows-vista-update.com/Windows_Vista_Activation.html

Message Edited by mombodog on 11-27-2007 04:15 PM

magedam · Answer

Sure my intention was not to steal the windows copy , i already have one , i just needed to restore the partition order as the factory default , i have a valid key and license for vista , i just wanted to know how the activation process runs , which code should i use , thanks.

pcgeek11 · Answer

Change the product key to the sticker for your copy:   Right click ' Computer ' on the start menu and select properties. On the resulting screen at the bottom will be a link to ' Change Product Key '.   Do that to the key on the OEM Label on your machine. You will however probably have to call microsoft.   pcgeek11

magedam · Answer

Thanks alot Pcgeek and mombodog

mombodog · Answer

Anytime.  :smileyhappy:

Windows General

how to activate ?

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