Fuck HP support. Does anyone know of any unconventional ways of preserving OEM activation through a repair install when the only COA on the machine is for Vista? I have the correct media for the computer, but I know it will ask for a product key I don't have. IIRC I've used Magical Jelly Bean in the past and the product key it finds is a generated virtual key that won't work in setup or oobe. Why can't they be like dell that lets you use their OEM CD for an automatic activation bypass.

3/3/2010 12:26:27 PM

lol. note to self: Never use the recovery partition as a backup destination.

3/3/2010 2:32:08 PM

generated virtual key? i've pulled keys using that type of software and used them to install windows before....

3/3/2010 3:20:17 PM

yeah jelly bean works just fine for OEM windows installs, as well as VLK installs... dunno what happened to you. It's not going to work going from Vista->XP though, since they require different keys.

3/3/2010 3:59:40 PM

Are you just trying to do a reinstall? Unplug the network connection, do the reinstall with a lessthandesirable key, then use oobe to update it to the real key, then activate. Unless you need this for work or a customer where you can't do that ... should work.

EDIT: Crap, I just realized what you are trying to do. If it's still under warranty, see if HP will send out an OEM disc with WinXP on it. Support sucks to go through, but if you get what you want at the end of the day, so be it.

[Edited on March 3, 2010 at 5:31 PM. Reason : .]

3/3/2010 5:19:18 PM

It is for a work PC, but I could have sworn that the keys won't activate. I just wiped the machine anyway. I'll check to see if jelly bean finds the same key this go-around.

3/3/2010 5:30:04 PM