laptop problem

[derek12345]

my brother has a laptop which he has had from new he decided to format it yesterday he has ran his vista disc through and put in product key which is stuck on laptop all went well format no problem but it is saying his vista runs out in 3 days what does this mean and how can we fix it it is a genuine product key number

 

[oneman]

Did he use the recovery DVD for the laptop or a generic vista DVD ?

 

[techquest]

That's a new one, never come across that before and it cannot be correct if it is genuine. He needs to talk to MS support and get them to sort that issue out.

 

[little_pob]

As oneman is hinting, Vista can be a little picky when using OEM keys with retail install discs (and vice-versa). It does normally work though - usually you just have to run through the activation again. Making sure that you are connected to the net when doing so and the key you type is what it says on the licence sticker (they are surprisingly easy to damage).

If that fails do as techquest says, and phone the activation line.

 

[Psy]

You could try re-registering the product key.

Open a root command prompt by going to Start>Accessories>Command Prompt.
Right click on command prompt and select run as administrator.
At the command prompt type the following commands;

slmgr.vbs /ipk INSERT-YOUR-PRODUCT-KEY-HERE
slmgr.vbs /ato

This should force the key to re-register. Obviously you must have a valid key.
Wait a few seconds and the computer should respond that it has registered the key.

 

[MikeS]

i thought most vista laptops have a locked partition for OS recovery by pressing F11 on boot