Lost product key. Am I hosed?

[Keiichi25]

Caveat Emptor - Buying anything used will always be "Let the buyer beware."

As the others harped about the MSDN part, the MSDN was meant to allow developer types to have access to the software to develop, not 'give away'. It also allows developers to learn from the other possible software products and see how they interact, so long as they do not use the software purely for business purposes.

This is the foundation of trying to get developers to work with Microsoft by giving them the tools to see how it would work or see what would happen under certain conditions. No developer is going to go out and buy all those items at retail just to verify it will work, so Microsoft makes an exception to help developers continue to make products for their product line.

 

[hanshotfirst]

Caveat Emptor - Buying anything used will always be "Let the buyer beware."

As the others harped about the MSDN part, the MSDN was meant to allow developer types to have access to the software to develop, not 'give away'. It also allows developers to learn from the other possible software products and see how they interact, so long as they do not use the software purely for business purposes.

This is the foundation of trying to get developers to work with Microsoft by giving them the tools to see how it would work or see what would happen under certain conditions. No developer is going to go out and buy all those items at retail just to verify it will work, so Microsoft makes an exception to help developers continue to make products for their product line.

Now I know that about MSDN. Makes sense. And thanks for clearing up what it is all about. As I said, it was news to me. At this point, I dont care about 7 anymore. I just want a windows OS on this machine, to make it "marketable" and I'm perfectly ok with putting Vista back on it. Frankly, if I was gonna keep this machine, I'd probably just stick with Ubuntu and call it a day. I bought the license for Vista when I purchased the machine. So all I need to do is get my hands on a copy of it. I'm not gonna pay HP for the recovery discs. Last time I tried that, they didnt work properly on a new, raw HDD, and that's when that guy offered to give me 7. But if MS will activate Vista for me, I'm pretty sure I can find a copy of it floating around.
Again, I thank everyone for the replies, and for letting me know what my options are. Even the cocky replies weren't as cocky as one usually finds in a forum.

 

[gregrocker]

Have you attempted to correctly repair Win7?

Boot the WIn7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD, make sure Win7 is marked Active: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/71432-partition-mark-active.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2083-system-repair-disc-create.html

Next boot back into DVD Repair to accept any offered repair, then boot back in again to Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots until WIn7 starts.

If necessary you can copy your files out using this method, including the BSOD report which can be uploaded to our Debugging forum where the real geniuses can help you overcome it: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/93347-copy-paste-windows-recovery-console.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/crashes-debugging/96879-blue-screen-death-bsod-posting-instructions.html

Unfortunately the Product Key file is encrypted and cannot be retrieved until you start Win7, then use Belarc.