Quick vista reinstallation Q

[caonabismo]

so my laptop is extremely slow and cluttered with lots of stuff. it needs a reformat urgently, but i threw away the disc that came with it long time ago. my question is if i borrow a friend's oem disc which is 32 same as my laptop and put in my used legit key, will it work? or if i download it from the internet, either through my school or torrent, and put in my legit key?

thanks in advance for helping a noob

 

[Ijack]

Probably not. It will be an OEM installation, so the key will only work with the same OEM version. Unless you're particularly lucky and your friend has the same make and model of laptop as you you'll need to get a new disk from the manufacturer. It probably wasn't a good idea to throw away the original - who knows when you may want, or need, to reinstall the OS. (Not much good to you now, but a warning to others.)

BTW, I suspect that if you use your school's computers to download a pirate copy then you'll be in big trouble - as you may be if you do so at home.

 

[caonabismo]

what i meant by downloading through school is i have free access to windows vista downloads through the school MSDN program. i can download an oem iso version to burn to a disc instead of having to buy an oem disc on newegg, but i dont think i get a key though.

torrent is just something i could do at home. as long as i have a legit key to activate i dont see a problem.

and lame if manufacturer's key only work with their own oem disc.

 

[Ijack]

Ah, that makes sense. But still, I'm afraid, the answer is you need the right version to go with your key.

I wouldn't recommend downloading from a torrent - it's not legal and you can't be sure that someone hasn't messed with the program.