Deactivate Vista

So before I install Windows 7, do I need to deactivate Vista so I can install it again if I wanted to or if there was to be a problem with my W7 file?

Just that some other pieces of software like Photoshop reccommend that you deactivate software before getting rid of it so you can use the product key again if you wanted to reinstall it.

No. Not Vista. MS will "deactivate" it the next time it is installed - under some circumstances.

Tews said:

Instead, why not image your Vista drive/partition so if you need to restore it you wont have to worry about reactivating it, and re-installing all of your programs...

Sound advice.

I'm not sure what Lemur is saying about phone activation. He may be referring to a future re-install of Vista should the license key fail to activate automatically online.

I gave my retail copy of Vist32 to my niece a few days ago and MS is requiring phone activation.

I did a full backup onto a DVD when I first loaded up my laptop so I can reinstall that if needed and my gran has a Vista DVD that came with her laptop so everything there should be good but I know MS are real tight when it comes to things like these.

QuackPot, you are good to go.

Get quacking.

Tews said:

Just keep in mind that there is a big difference between an imaging the drive and a backup... An image records the exact state of a drive and/or a partition, it will restore it to that exact same state. Depending on the type of backup you perform, this may not be the case.

It was a full backup of my C drive using the adobe software and was something like 7GB. But since my gran has the Vista install DVD I can easily install that, enter my vista key then restore my original image should I need to.