Sony Vista OEM question
 

Hey guys,
Let me start by saying that if this post is not acceptable for this site or this section please feel free to remove it.

I have a friend who is visiting long term from brasil with her Sony laptop. I got a few copies of vista as image files. I installed Vista using her cd-key from the sticker on the bottom of her laptop. Installed fine, then a week later she is getting asked for a valid key. We try re entering her key and same problem. The version of windows installed is the same as the key.(In fact the version of windows I got asked for teh key and then told me the version it was for)

Could the problem be that the key is a Sony key? Or is there something I may have missed? Any help would be appreciated, the disc cannot be located in Brasil and we do not really want to purchase a new OS

Phad

I don't have an answer for you, but I suggest you call Sony.

1-888-289-7669

Tried before the install, they want money for copies of the rescue disks for this laptop. That is what I was trying to avoid. I thought with her legit key it would be ok. I had done it with other computers, but not a sony :(

Phad

To do this you require the OEM certificate for Sony and then you must do some commands via command prompt to get it activated.

Of course, this is all technically illegal so I can't really say much more :ph34r:

ORRR he could do it the easy way. When it asks to activate, it will fail when using the online auto activation, from there it will give you an option to call Microsoft directly, it will ask you to put in a long "phone line activation based key" which will fail and then tell you to hold on the line for a live person.

Once speaking with live persion they will ask a few simple questions, why you reinstalling, why did you use this sony key, etc, just tell them, its the ONLY computer your using the key on, on the same sony laptop, just that the install got hosed and you used a spare disk to install and the key off the bottom.
they will give you the activation code and you will be on your way :)

Well lets just say he figured it out :whistle:

And I don't know if phoning would work because as far as I know the only way to activate an OEM key is to use the corresponding OEM certificate (along with the properly SLIC string in the BIOS too). It's very easy to find this stuff on the net too so why waste time phoning MS?