vista activation question godfather94024 <r650[ at ]yahoo.com> 11/13/2008 2:37:36 PM My hard drive failed and I had to replace it. I reinstalled XP professional with the proper product key and I activated it successfully online. When I tried to reinstall my vista business upgrade it asked for my product key and then I received an error message telling me to install from my original operating system. I deleted the product key and installed vista. It is now running but I cannot activate. Using my valid vista business product key that worked when I originally installed xp and upgraded to vista I receive an error message telling me that this product key can only be used for an upgrade not a clean install. How can get around this problem??? When I use the upgrade product key during the vista upgrade I receive the error message in efect telling me to reinstall my original operating system and if I try the clean install approach I can't activate??

Re: vista activation question Brink <guest[ at ]unknown-email.com> 11/13/2008 3:17:09 PM Hello GodFather, Since you have a Upgrade version of Vista, use the method in this tutorial to install it instead. http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/68767-clean-install-upgrade-vista.html You should be able to activate it afterwards. If not you may just need to do a phone activation. This will show you how to if needed. http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/84488-activate-vista-phone.html Hope this helps, Shawn godfather94024;885444 Wrote: > My hard drive failed and I had to replace it. I reinstalled XP > professional with the proper product key and I activated it > successfully online. When I tried to reinstall my vista business > upgrade it asked for my product key and then I received an error > message telling me to install from my original operating system. > > I deleted the product key and installed vista. It is now running but I > cannot activate. Using my valid vista business product key that worked > when I originally installed xp and upgraded to vista I receive an > error message telling me that this product key can only be used for an > upgrade not a clean install. > > How can get around this problem??? > > When I use the upgrade product key during the vista upgrade I receive > the error message in efect telling me to reinstall my original > operating system and if I try the clean install approach I can't > activate?? -- Brink *There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask them.* '*Windows 7 Forums*' (http://www.sevenforums.com/) *and* '*::Vista Forums::*' (http://www.vistax64.com) *Please post feedback to help others.*