How to get hold of Vista basic without paying ?

No3ntry

No3ntry

No3ntry

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My dear old Gran's laptop is suffering the wrath of too many users and not enough idea.

What I'd like to do is reinstal vista for her.

The problem here is that she has vista basic and the laptop didnt come with a recover disk, it came with a recovery partition that for whatever reason is inaccesable (supposed to press F10 or something like that when booting but the option just simply isnt there).

Is there anywhere legally I can obtain a free copy of vista basic without the key. Or perhaps somewhere on MS site I can punch in her activation key and it allows me to DL it somehow ?

I have vista home premium myself (original retail box) could I use that and put the basic key in and it only installs the basic version ?

Thanks for looking
James
 
Using your Vista disc is worth a shot - but if it is Retail it probably wont work. I believe all versions of Vista are on one DVD, but I don't know if MS disabled using the discs in that way [i.e. locked it to only installing Home Premium].

As for getting a copy for free - I suppose you could try Digital River or similar - I know they have the Windows 7 ISOs. There is also the wonderful world of BitTorrent - but that could land you in hot water and leave you with a compromised Vista ISO.
 
You should be ok using your disk & her Legit code, done it a few times just to get rid of the rubbish that most laptops come pre installed with.

You'll probably need to go to the Laptop makers website & download specific drivers and have them to hand after install.
 
I used my retail Vista Home Premium disk to reinstall Vista Basic on a HP laptop, using the product key on the underside of the laptop.

When I looked at Microsoft website it stated you had to contact the laptop manufacturer if wanted media.
 
this works on 7 but not sure on vista, but its worth a try:)
sometimes to acess the recovery image.
press f8 at startup.
select
repair your computer
go through the regional settings.
there should be an option called system image recovery.
this should find the recovery partition
 
If you find your original retail disc is locked to only install one version (i.e. Home Premium), there is an easy work-around. Just image the DVD to your hard drive as an ISO, and then edit the ISO to modify or delete the ei.cfg file. That will allow you to install (legally) any version you like - including Basic - although you'll need a valid key correlating to that release of course.

Details here.

The guide is for Win7, but Vista is the same iirc. If worst comes to worst you can always grab an ISO from 'other sources' and MD5 check it against known official MS ISOs.
 
Thanks for all the help guys.
I was just checking over the laptop before I started this and I spotted an ISO image dumped directly into the C drive, so I burnt it to disk and it appears this was the recovery disk and i was able to restore windows that way.

What a strange thing to do though and not document it.

Laptop is now running perfectly though all previous problems gone.
Gran very happy lol.

Cheers guys
 
Vista discs were all in one. There was no different SKU either for retail or OEM. So a retail disk will accept a OEM key. Your Home Premium disk will also accept a key for Basic or Ultimate. The key defines what edition will be installed.

XP had different discs for OEM and Retail. And different discs for Home & Pro.

Windows 7 is an all in one disk but is locked to a particular SKU via a config file, you can change this to an all-in-one if rebuilding the ISO or installing from USB. If not then a Retail Home disc will accept a OEM Home key.
 
Now set up the main account as a Limited User Account and keep the Admin Account for yourself. This will save you so much time in the future while also being a nice boost to the laptop security.
 
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