OEM product key

ferraridave said:

Hi,

Can anybody answer this question for me, I've just brought a new Sony Vaio laptop, and it has Win7 Home Premium pre-installed, but also comes pre loaded with loads of crapware.
What I intend to do is use a downloaded iso of the same os, to do a nice clean install with, but, what I want to know is, can I then use the product key that came with the laptop to legally activate it, or do I have to buy another OEM version to get a new product key ?

Thanks' in advance for any help given, Dave.

Most OEM Computers have a product key listed somewhere on the PC. You can use that to activate the same version of Windows it is for.

Hope that helps. :)

ferraridave said:

Sorry forgot to mention, I have the product key from a sticker on the bottom of the laptop, and, the iso I've d/l is also OEM, cheers guy's.

Should work without an issue...

Be sure to let us know

You cannot use the oem key to activate a retail version
(...if it stayed same as vista,tryed it on a vista home basic-came with a invalid key error and i had to grab the one from the sticker on my laptop)

ratePV said:

You cannot use the oem key to activate a retail version
(...if it stayed same as vista,tryed it on a vista home basic-came with a invalid key error and i had to grab the one from the sticker on my laptop)

I've used the Vista Home Premium Product key on my laptop, with a retail install of Vista Home Premium. :S

ratePV said:

You cannot use the oem key to activate a retail version
(...if it stayed same as vista,tryed it on a vista home basic-came with a invalid key error and i had to grab the one from the sticker on my laptop)

Incorrect...the OEM key will activate a retail ISO of Vista/7

All of the Windows images are the same...it is the product keys that differ

DarkNovaGamer said:

ratePV said:

You cannot use the oem key to activate a retail version
(...if it stayed same as vista,tryed it on a vista home basic-came with a invalid key error and i had to grab the one from the sticker on my laptop)

I've used the Vista Home Premium Product key on my laptop, with a retail install of Vista Home Premium. :S

Hmmmm, strange...

If that is true than i had two keys for basic and i activated them on the
same computer

But i'm pretty sure that it didn't work (read out from Everest the key from the factory OS-which was different from the one in the sticker) and it didn't work...

EDIT: Yes you can activate your retail with OEM key(which i did) but you cannot activate it with your preloaded key.