New

[Jeepers38]

Bought a new computer earlier this year with Vista Ultimate 64-bit OEM installed. Found it would not perform satisfactorily with certain Adobe programs, so had Vista uninstalled and an XP Pro OEM installed, which works well. Question: If I install the OEM Vista on my old computer (It meets MS's compatibility standards.) will I have activation problems? Thanks for any suggestions?

 

[lilleenga]

Yes, because The OEM Version can only be activated for one machine+ other foolish rules, but does you old Pc handle the recommendation for Vista?

 

[Jeepers38]

Yes, the old PC components meet the recommended standards for Vista; however, since writing have decided against keeping the old computer and am now considering installing Vista on the new machine on a second partition, since the hard drive is a Seagate SATA 500GB, which will give me plenty of room for both systems--unless somebody discourages me from setting up a dual boot arrangement. Do you have any thoughts about a dual boot system?

 

[lilleenga]

A Dual Boot System can be very practical and smart, but I have seen a few people who had to face some tricky problems... 500Gb isn't that mush "extra" storage, is there any special reasons why you want a dual boot system?

 

[Jeepers38]

My not very good reason for wanting a dual boot system is for the purpose of working with and becoming acquainted with Vista and the fact that when I ordered my new computer I also requested that they install Vista Ultimate. But when a couple of Adobe Web and Publishing programs did not perform satisfactorily, I reformatted and installed XP Pro. I am presently operating with a 150GB partition for XP Pro--of which I am using only 25GB--and would like to establish a second partition of about 100GB for Vista. I have read that in setting up a dual boot system, XP Pro should be installed first, then Vista. If that's true, then I am now in the right position to install Vista. I assume Vista will allow itself to be installed on a drive other than C:. Your further comments would be appreciated, particularly with reference to any "tricky problems" that might arise.

 

[lilleenga]

Try it, and let me hear from you soon.

 

[Jeepers38]

I established a second partition on the hard drive, formatted it in NTFS, and tried to install from within XP Pro, but was told program could not install from within XP that I should boot to the disk. Shut down, restarted the computer (my CD/DVD drive is first in boot order), and the PC went through the usual in booting up to XP Pro. Did not appear to see the Vista disc although the DVD light was on for several seconds in the course of the bootup. The Vista disc is an OEM and was originally installed on the PC until I had the drive reformatted and XP Pro installed. The Big Question: How can I get the PC to accept the Vista disc?

 

[lilleenga]

Have the "Vista disc" been activated on a different Computer? As i told earlier that OEM versions of windows have limited activations on ONE machine.

Check out other OEM rules on this website:
http://www.hardwareanalysis.com/content/topic/68306/

 

[Jeepers38]

No, the Vista disc had never been installed on any other machine. But to continue, I queried JNCS, telling them that the CD light came on briefly but did not seem to see the Vista disc. A fellow there told me to tap the space bar when the DVD light comes on to see if it would then see Vista. Lo and behold, it did and I now have all of my stuff on the XP Pro drive and in the process of seeing what programs will install on the Vista partition. So far so good. Haven't setup my mail yet but will do so if I decide that I want to stick with Vista as my default system. That default option, incidentally, is available within Vista. Very nice. So everything is hunkie-dorie at the moment. Thanks for your help.