Nothing Special HW, but its my dive into the pool called Vista.
An oasis many of you have been splashing about in for a long time no doubt.

Ive got many questions about Vista but ill save them for Google and Search.

But my one question is this...

This Laptop was paid for (by me) all legal and above Bord from a Electrical chain here in the UK called PC-world.
It came with Vista Home Premium installed.
There is a Packard-Bell system Backup app install that I've used
that backup all the Drivers n shit like that i guess.

But what happens if Vista itself ever needs reinstalling?


i mean I've paid for this Vista right? surly i should have a backup.


Apparently its quite normal for a wide range of PC's and Laptops to come with Vista preInstalled
i bet some people have had problems down the line, how do they fix it?

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I got a laptop the other day. A Smell for CA$300. XP, OpenOffice, Floola, Firefox, Portableapps and Xvid playback.

Oh and the occasional bout of GTA and GTA2 courtesy of free downloads from Rockstar.

Tis a lowly 1.65 Centrino M with a 40gb HD but does the job fine.

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Arthur, you should indeed own the vista license. If you look on the bottom of the machine, there should be a product label with your key on it. IF this label isn't there, then I would find out why, as it is your ticket to owning the OS.

Most commercial laptops now-a-days have either a restore/recovery partition or a way in the software to make a disk for the purpose of restoring the machine back to original configuration.



I've about talked my boss into buying me a MacBook. I'll know next week if it is going to happen, but he indicated that he really didn't see a problem with it.

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Hypocrite!!!!

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Got my new PC about 2 weeks ago:



The 3070Mb is actually 4Gb, 768Mb Nvidia 8800 GTX, Soundblaster X-Fi 7.1, 15-in-1-card reader, bluetooth, 2x 320Gb HDs, more USB slots than I could ever need (and I have 4 external HDs!).

My first new machine in 5 years...and all for under £900 delivered. New experience for me burning an encode, whilst watching a movie, whilst another is dl'ing at 1.6Mb/s...and still have my browser open on the 2nd monitor watching a streaming footy match

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quote:

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Originally posted by eljefeoscuro
If you look on the bottom of the machine, there should be a product label with your key on it.

Most commercial laptops now-a-days have either a restore/recovery partition or a way in the software to make a disk for the purpose of restoring the machine back to original configuration.

---

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it is possible that the recovery partition is hidden.


Baha: There is a registry key change that will make vista recognize your full 4GB (up to 2TB, actually) as long as it is recognized in the bios.

If I can find my link for it, I'll post it for you.

LOLobo: no, I'm not a hypocrite, I'm keeping the XP laptop, the BSD box and the Vista box. Just wanted a new toy, and got the boss to pay for it, and seeing as it is illegal in this country to buy busty women (except in Vegas) I thought, "what the hell, I'll get a MacBook"

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quote:

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Originally posted by eljefeoscuro
a registry key change that will make vista recognize your full 4GB (up to 2TB, actually) as long as it is recognized in the bios.

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The BIOS sees the full 4Gb, 4x1028 is reported.

Naturally I checked the machine over upon receiving it and when I got the 3Gb returned I flipped my lid, but apparently Vista reserves RAM for OS use...1Gb reserved???
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929580

But if you know a way to free that up then I'm all ears EJF. Cheers bud.

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Yep, i just got a new lappy for school also, the Dell Inspirion 1720, great laptop, im really starting to like dell. Got it for only 1600 (CAD), it was well worth every penny.

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i dunno about you guys, but now i got a laptop that's capable of playing PC games.

Any recommendations?



PS., I just activated the OS using the key from the sticker on the bottom of the lappy.

Ive made what HP calls a system restore DVD, (almost a full dvdr worth)
but im still not convinced that IF the OS gets fucked.
i can reinstall Vista...

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quote:

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Originally posted by eljefeoscuro

I've about talked my boss into buying me a MacBook. I'll know next week if it is going to happen, but he indicated that he really didn't see a problem with it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Arthur Daily

Ive made what HP calls a system restore DVD, (almost a full dvdr worth)
but im still not convinced that IF the OS gets fucked.
i can reinstall Vista...

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quote:

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Originally posted by eljefeoscuro
The HP system restore disk should boot and restore the system back to factory original configuration, including OS.

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That's what i wanted to hear

All the fucking manual says is it will Make a restore disk,
I guessed that was just the settings and drivers n shit.
if what you say is true then im a happy man.


But im just happy i got a PC now that doesn't take 3 weeks to start up and 2 days to launch a program.

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When I wanted to format and reinstall XP home on my legit Acer laptop, (which didn't come with the os disk) I just used a downloaded copy and registered it with MS over the automated telephone service. It actually asked me how many computers this license is installed on! Made me chuckle.

Anyway, it worked a treat, so if you're ever stuck you could possibly get round it that way.

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Don't forget, if you don't want all of the pre-installed dogshit and want a clean install of Windows:

Either check your Laptop or documentation for your Windows serial then download the "official" version of your copy of Windows (HAS to be the same version of Windows, you can't shove an XP Home key up XP Corporate for example) and install a clean copy of Windows but use the key that was supplied with your Lappy instead of the one in the .nfo file

Job done!

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This is a good a place to ask this question as anywhere else. You know those Win XP serial numbers on the bottom of laptops ? Aren't they OEM specific? Ie I heard that if I had a Dell laptop running XP Home then grabbed a retail copy of XP Home and used that number, it wouldn't work. Is this the same across the board or just some manufacturers? I have a Packard Bell laptop I'm selling on which currently has a legit XP Home on it, but I don't want to reformat if I then lose the legit license.

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I don't know about modern laptops with XP, but recently I installed a downloaded version of Windows 98 SE on an old Dell desktop using the serial # from a sticker on the side of the box.

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quote:

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Originally posted by pHo
This is a good a place to ask this question as anywhere else. You know those Win XP serial numbers on the bottom of laptops ? Aren't they OEM specific? Ie I heard that if I had a Dell laptop running XP Home then grabbed a retail copy of XP Home and used that number, it wouldn't work. Is this the same across the board or just some manufacturers? I have a Packard Bell laptop I'm selling on which currently has a legit XP Home on it, but I don't want to reformat if I then lose the legit license.

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quote:

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Originally posted by baha
The BIOS sees the full 4Gb, 4x1028 is reported.

Naturally I checked the machine over upon receiving it and when I got the 3Gb returned I flipped my lid, but apparently Vista reserves RAM for OS use...1Gb reserved???
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929580

But if you know a way to free that up then I'm all ears EJF. Cheers bud.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Arthur Daily
That's what i wanted to hear

All the fucking manual says is it will Make a restore disk,
I guessed that was just the settings and drivers n shit.
if what you say is true then im a happy man.


But im just happy i got a PC now that doesn't take 3 weeks to start up and 2 days to launch a program.

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