How To Create Windows Vista Installation Dvd? and how does installation works?

[mm22 0]

This is the situation. I have a laptop which came with Windows Vista preinstalled. The deal also included a free update to Windows 7, which I got some time later. Now before upgrading to Windows 7 I would like to create a real Windows Vista Installation Disk. Beware I am not talking about a rescue disk, factory reset, ghost image, or anything like that. I would like to have a Vista DVD that can install the OS on a computer using the license key I purchased with my laptop. This is never provided by manufacturers which instead provided a restore disk which is basically a hard drive image of your laptop as it was in the factory. That is fine but it is not what I want. Since I purchased a license key, I would like to have a real installation media, I believe this is allowed by MS copyright agreement but I may be wrong... you never know.

 

Anyway I did some searching and found that to have a Vista installer you need a bunch of files, called boot.wim install.wim and something else, which are common to all Vista editions (Home, Premium, ...) but different from XP or previous OSs. Someone else says you can download (for free) a Microsoft tool, called Windows AIK and with that you can create your ISO file to burn to DVD. But in that case apparently you need all the installation files to be present on your hard drive which is not the case. What I am thinking now is that I can borrow a friends installation DVD and get the files, then create the ISO image from my installation of Vista.

 

This lead me to another question, where are license keys stored? I mean when you install a copy of Windows they will ask for a license key, how do they check that the key is valid? It obviously shouldn't rely on a remote server because a connection might not be available, so that information must be present locally. In this case which keys are recorded on which DVD? A predetermined set of licenses? All license keys that have been and ever will be released? Or maybe there is some calculation involved so that you can tell if the key is valid or not?

 

What I am thinking is whether it would be possible to use any installation DVD with any license key. In this case I could use another installation DVD (from a friend for example) and when asked for a license key enter my own. This would mean that all you buy is after all just a key.

 

Any insight would be appreciated

[BuffaloHelp 24]

Since the year 2000 machines and on, your operating system's key is in a sticker form and is attached to your machine. Any machine that does not have MS license key sticker is not legitimately installed OS.Many people have tried to look for it in registry for stored license key. But the best way I found is to run a program that can find the exact license key. There are many out there and some are even free via trial version. But that's all you need.I have known in the past that my real license key did not work with all XP Pro legitimate Windows XP Pro installation disk. I would imagine that keys were generated with some logic calculation and is only compatible with SP2 or SP3 etc. Which means, if your license key was used pre SP2, it may not work with installation disk that has SP2 or higher. I believe this is because of WGA--Windows Genuine Advantage which was released around SP2. Therefore, a license key will not be compatible with WGA approved licenses. I hope that makes some sense.Anyway, besides how it should work first make sure you have this sticker that features Windows license key. If not, contact your manufacture immediately.

[mm22 0]

Thanks for your reply BuffaloHelp. Yes I do have the sticker attached to my laptop. I am pretty sure that will match if I run one of those tools, well it should! As for what you say about incompatible licenses between different SP versions, yes it makes sense. It could also be that periodically more licenses are released and hard coded into the installation images.I guess there is no easy way to know until I try installing through a Vista DVD (which I need to find first) and then use my license key. This can be delayed a great deal, as I am not really going to use either Vista or 7, so it's just out of curiosity

[Semsem 0]

As far as I know, you can create an install disk, but you need to first get the serial number for use by MS. MS needs each OS to have a different number (which I don't like), but you gotta do what you gotta do.Now, I want to know why you WANT Vista!!

[mm22 0]

Now, I want to know why you WANT Vista!!

In fact I do not *want* Vista, or any other Windows version for that matter. But since I (without having a choice) paid for the license I might as well have a real installation disk, just to add to my collection In some cases it *might* be useful to have such disk, even though at the moment I can't really think of any! And first of all it's just out of curiosity, to see if and how it can be done.

To be honest I would expect a more straightforward way, if not some official help from MS, to perform this "basic" operation. The reason behind such a way not being straightforward might well be an attempt to discourage installation on multiple computer, or maybe just the fact that most people ultimately don't care whether they have a real installation disk or just a restore disk. Both will get the job done when it comes to reinstalling your OS.

I have been using Linux based (or I should say GNU/Linux) operating systems for some time now. I wouldn't say they are absolutely better than Windows, but sure they are in many ways. One of things I appreciate most is the ability of understanding what's really going on behind the doors and therefore being able to understand more about computers in general. Another noticeable difference, and this goes back to the topic of this thread, is the ability of customizing nearly everything, not necessarily resorting to advanced programming skills in order to do so. To the specific case, any Linux OS will make your life very easy when it comes to creating a bootable disk from which you can run the operating system directly. In fact most Linux distributions comes in a bootable disk (or live disk) format.

It is not all nice and sweet, in some cases half finished applications or partially compatible drivers will get you think that Windows after all was not such a bad place. Your sound may or may not work and so your wi-fi card. But then you come to think of how much additional (or 3rd party) software you need to get in order to do even something as basic as opening a pdf file when you are running Windows. Or the fact that you have to remember the make of your sound/display/wifi card in order to get proper drivers every time you need them. And ultimately your system will still crash and it will still not work 100% fine and in any case not for too long. While things might not work 100% on a Linux system either you can be pretty confident that a fresh install of any distributions will provide you with everything you need for a basic computing experience. You can open a pdf file, edit a picture, work on a spreadsheet, browse safely and have pleasing graphical visual effects pretty much out of the box. Over time you will learn which applications work and which ones do not, and, just like for Windows, you will have your own set of tools that you can use to get the job done. Not to mentions the ability to manage your hard disk partitioning scheme, which is in my opinion unparalleled on Linux systems. There is not need to install (often commercial) 3rd party software, the basic partitioning tools which are included in most Linux distros will let you quickly get a hang of your hard drive, including providing other operating systems with their own filesystems and booting preferences.

I am aware this thread went a bit off topic, but I believe this is a good example to illustrate some of the advantages of using GNU/Linux operating systems over Windows. Linux is not just free (meaning you don't need to pay for it) and thus inherently free of license key issues. It is also free in the way you can play with it, tweak it to suit your needs and get basic things solved the way they should. With a simple straightforward solution.

[doctormrli 0]

I don't know. But havn't you got it while you buy it?May be you can download an vista iso, burn it to a cd/dvd disk.

[mm22 0]

I don't know. But havn't you got it while you buy it?
May be you can download an vista iso, burn it to a cd/dvd disk.

Yes that is what I did in the end... I downloaded *some* installation ISO which I hope to activate with my product key. I haven't tried yet, but this is anyhow not a *proper* way of doing. But sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do :angel: