Vista???

S

Sooner

New Member
Recently bought a Compaq computer, just received the Vista upgrade in the mail today. My question is, can I install Vista on another computer, a notebook computer? Thanks.
 
I don't understand, does the compaq computer have vista on it allready? If you bought the upgrade you can only install it on one computer, as far as i know. If you got an upgrade CD but haven't installed it yet; decide what computer you want it on.
 
Well...

I want it on the Notebook computer, not sure if it will allow me though. When you first start out, it ask you what kind of computer you have, a HP or Compaq, nothing mentioned about the Notebook.
 
Sooner said:
I want it on the Notebook computer, not sure if it will allow me though. When you first start out, it ask you what kind of computer you have, a HP or Compaq, nothing mentioned about the Notebook.
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It doesn't matter, the upgrade CD you recv'd will install itself on any machine your decide.

As long as you have the Product ID that came with it. In most cases, even though people do or don't do it - but you can use the same disc on more than one machine. I wouldn't of course, but most people do, especially when you have one desktop and one notebook.

Just something to think about.
 
Okay...

But is asks me to go to www.hp.com and type in the name of the computer, my notebook is not listed. Is that a problem, or can I simply just start installing the Vista CD? Do you mean you should be able to put it on both computers? Thanks.
 
You most likely will only be able to use the upgrade CD on the computer that its meant for. If its anything like the recovery CD, then it will only work on one specific machine.
 
hey if i buy the original o/s for vista....can i use the one cd key to install onto more than one computer?
 
[QUOTE='hey if i buy the original o/s for vista....can i use the one cd key to install onto more than one computer?[/QUOTE]

No, you can only use it on one machine. You have a limited time to activate the operating system and when you try to activate it if it's been activated on a different machine already it wont activate and it will give you a 1-888 number to call Microsoft. You can give them some BS and get them to give you an activation code for the second machine but if both machines are connected to the internet Microsoft will figure it out. I had to give them my contact information to activate XP after I moved it to a different computer so I'd assume they'd call you back if they realized one operating system was on two machines.
 
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To use the recovery disk on the notebook you already have to have one previous version of Windows installed. If this recovery disk was provided by CompaQ it would have CompaQ somewhere on the label specifying use on that machine only. The product key would then be matched for the serial number. If it's the average upgrade you could then run it on the notebook but notebook only.
 
If it's an upgrade CD he got from Microsoft, it should probably be the regular retail upgrade.
By the way, it's a DVD, so if you don't have a DVD drive....
 
All of the single disk sets are dvd. If you plan on multibooting Vista with more then one drive you will want Vista to go on last too. When installing XP Pro onto a sata after Vista went on a second ide drive here there was no way to add that into the new boot manager despite the bcdeditor and 3rd party making new entries.

A third install after reformatting the Vista drive finally saw the Vista boot manager on the XP Primary ide triple booting both Home and Pro versions while the primary was set as the default drive. When having the Vista drive set the "missing bcd" message came up. So now you see the Vista Home Premium or previous versions options with Home above Pro there. VistaBootPRO and EasyBCD proved useless.
 
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