Guys a friend of mine had issues with a laptop he had a really bad virus which he asked me to remove, when I scanned the laptop it was pretty pickled and he'd been complaining it had been running really slow, so when he dropped it off I thought I'd take the opportunity to format/wipe the machine.
The system as a Vista licence and I have two copys here of Vista home premium one of them being SP1 so to save time I though I'd install it with my Vista SP1 disc to save time downloading a shed load of updates.
First issue I ran into was when I flipped the laptop over the windows sticker was badly worn away, after getting a torch :d I jotted down what I thought the key was input this and it failed so i tried changing the 1's to I's O's to 0's etc etc nothing worked. So I thought sod it Ill just install the operating system for now and he can input the key within 30 days to activate it when he gets time.
When he came and picked the laptop up I told him about the worn sticker and he said he noticed it a while ago so jotted it down. he gave me a call the other day saying he tried to input the code and it keeps failing.
I've asked him to dropped the laptop round this evening so I can sort it out. The laptops Hard disc is partitioned I left the second partition clean as far as i know theres a recovery section on the D drive that I can use to return windows to the original state. This way I'm hoping I can work out what version of windows the licence is for and now the part I'm unsure of.
Using the recovery drive can I get the windows key from in here anywhere if I reinstall from the D drive ie is it located in the registry or anywhere like that ?? The sticker is very badly worn past the point of being able to read the windows licence version and the serial some of the digits I can barley see let alone work out
The system as a Vista licence and I have two copys here of Vista home premium one of them being SP1 so to save time I though I'd install it with my Vista SP1 disc to save time downloading a shed load of updates.
First issue I ran into was when I flipped the laptop over the windows sticker was badly worn away, after getting a torch :d I jotted down what I thought the key was input this and it failed so i tried changing the 1's to I's O's to 0's etc etc nothing worked. So I thought sod it Ill just install the operating system for now and he can input the key within 30 days to activate it when he gets time.
When he came and picked the laptop up I told him about the worn sticker and he said he noticed it a while ago so jotted it down. he gave me a call the other day saying he tried to input the code and it keeps failing.
I've asked him to dropped the laptop round this evening so I can sort it out. The laptops Hard disc is partitioned I left the second partition clean as far as i know theres a recovery section on the D drive that I can use to return windows to the original state. This way I'm hoping I can work out what version of windows the licence is for and now the part I'm unsure of.
Using the recovery drive can I get the windows key from in here anywhere if I reinstall from the D drive ie is it located in the registry or anywhere like that ?? The sticker is very badly worn past the point of being able to read the windows licence version and the serial some of the digits I can barley see let alone work out
