Activating fresh install on preinstalled OEM laptop

What's the problem with buying a set of Gateway recovery discs? You may only have to pay the shipping costs.

Gateway Support - What is Gateway System Recovery?

You can Order Acer recovery disks from here:
https://secure.tx.acer.com/RCDB/Main.aspx?brand=acer

It's $20. I checked. True, it's not that bad compared to buying windows again. I think I'm going to do some rigorous photographic analysis of the product key sticker and see if I can't nail it down.

seavixen32 said:

What's the problem with buying a set of Gateway recovery discs? You may only have to pay the shipping costs.

Well, I would have thought $20 is a reasonable price to pay - it's certainly better than paying for a retail Windows DVD.

Forgive me for sounding cynical, but whenever this type of issue crops up, it's always the product key that is obliterated. Best of luck with your rigorous photographic analysis.

Believe me, I won't neglect to write down the COA key from a new machine after this!

whs said:

I just checked my Belarc Advisor. And it does give me the OEM key AND the 25 digit key. it is under " Software Licenses" further down in the document. Look under "Internet Explorer".

WHS, thanks for confirming that. I was fairly certain Belarc would find the product ID and product key.

So you're saying it gave you the COA key? Too bad I didn't see that because I didn't save the file.

theog said:

You can not use the factory OEM-SLP activation method Product Key that Belarc, may/may not find to reinstall Windows.
System Locked Preinstallation - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You can not use the factory OEM-SLP

Theog, I admire your tenacity - I'm going to bow out gracefully on this one because I know you're right. :)