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vista oem activation

post #1 of 7
12/30/08 at 3:52pm
Thread Starter 
any work arounds for vista oem dell activation on non dell?

my dell xps m1330 got stolen so i bought a macboook and i successfully dual booted it only to find out that it will not activate because the machine i installed it on is a dell
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post #2 of 7
12/30/08 at 3:57pm
Microsoft has an operating system support number that should show up if your activation fails. If you call them and explain the situation, they may give you a new activation code. That's pretty much your only legal option.
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post #3 of 7
12/30/08 at 4:00pm
Thread Starter 
well the number didn't show up, i think that was an xp thing. but somehow dell managed to make their oem os distribution search for a validation chip on the mb

this is so gay...not only is vista a pretty crappy os but now i will have to buy another copy even though i had already paid for one in the cost of my stupid over priced dell xps
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post #4 of 7
12/30/08 at 4:02pm
hmm.. try going through this: http://support.microsoft.com/common/...kflow&rdpath=1
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post #5 of 7
1/3/09 at 3:56pm
The other wall you hit is that OEM licences are meant for one computer, I understand your situation is unique, but the legal stance on it is that the license is meant to be retired with the machine.

Their attitude that I've seen for that in the past is that what ever insurance you had should have covered the value of a new licence, but that's not always practical.

Sorry I'm not of more use in that, but just thought you should know the line that MS will give you on that.
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post #6 of 7
1/9/09 at 10:16pm
OEM licences of Microsoft operating systems ARE NON TRANSFERRABLE they remain with the system that was sold with the licence for all eternity.

Also, the Dell discs don't use any really really special trickery. They have a special Volume Licence key slipstreamed into the disc. This VLK still requires activation, but doesn't look for anything other than a special string present in the BIOS of a Dell system.

Them's the breaks unfortunately. Though I find it a tad ironic you called your XPS M1330 overpriced in spite of the fact you purchased a MacBook. Not to disparage the system itself, but Apple products and economical don't generally come up in the same sentence.
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post #7 of 7
1/10/09 at 2:25pm
+1 for the Macbook comment, especially as now they're not even different hardware from a PC.

It was harder to compair before when they were using Motorola chips and architecture.
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