Is it legit to use my Windows 7 sticker key on a downloaded Windows 7?

[Scouzer]

My Asus laptop came with Windows 7. Like a pro tool, I immediately lost the recovery discs after formatting the recovery partition.

So now I either pay $30 + S&H to get recovery discs... or I could download the same version of Windows and use my existing key if possible. However, I seem to remember keys are vendor specific, so I couldn't use my Asus key with a generic Windows 7 version...?

EDIT: I see this post is similar to one further down in the forum, but it's still unclear to me if my Asus Windows 7 key will work with a "retail" Windows 7 disc.

 

[corkyg]

Try it and see. The worst that can happen is that you pay $30+ for poor judgment.

 

[Ka0t1x]

Call Asus. Dell uses OEM disks.. I believe not 'retail'.

 

[Scouzer]

Call Asus. Dell uses OEM disks.. I believe not 'retail'.

He just referred me to buy the recovery discs... he had a ridiculous speech impediment, he was wheezing through the whole call, and a generally nasty attitude. Not impressed.

 

[lxskllr]

I'd look around for an OEM disc.

 

[JEDIYoda]

He just referred me to buy the recovery discs... he had a ridiculous speech impediment, he was wheezing through the whole call, and a generally nasty attitude. Not impressed.

He probably was not impressed with your situation iether.....
In fact he probably had you on the speaker phone so all the rest of the support could get a good laugh...hehee

 

[rudder]

Yes.. unlike XP there is no retail/oem version. You just match the license to the utlimate/pro/home edition. I did this with Vista at least.

 

[ViRGE]

Yes.. unlike XP there is no retail/oem version. You just match the license to the utlimate/pro/home edition. I did this with Vista at least.

And this would be the correct answer. Depending on the disc you may not even have to match the edition, as most discs can easily be modified to install other editions of Windows. Of course you'll want to be sure you're downloading the OS from an approved partner like Digital River, as illegitimate channels are not a safe way to download Windows.

 

[Modelworks]

If activation accepts the key it is legal

If it doesn't take it through the normal activation window then you may need the certificate for your brand of pc. It is basically an xml file that has vendor specific information , it is not unique to that pc so it doesn't contain anything specific except to tell windows what brand it should check for.

Any windows 7 pc made by ASUS should work.
The file will be whatever brand it is followed by .xrm-ms

once you have it enter this at command prompt:

slmgr.vbs -ilc C: \ASUS.XRM-MS
slmgr.vbs -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

where xxx = your product key

It can take about 30 seconds for the second command to process.
It will display a message when complete.

 

[tcsenter]

Evidently there are tokens involved in OEM activation of Windows 7 (unlike Vista).

 

[Scouzer]

Well, I went ahead and tried it. It didn't activate out of the box, but it activated just fine with the automatic phone activation. So I guess it's kosher!

 

[Scouzer]

If activation accepts the key it is legal

If it doesn't take it through the normal activation window then you may need the certificate for your brand of pc. It is basically an xml file that has vendor specific information , it is not unique to that pc so it doesn't contain anything specific except to tell windows what brand it should check for.

Any windows 7 pc made by ASUS should work.
The file will be whatever brand it is followed by .xrm-ms

once you have it enter this at command prompt:

slmgr.vbs -ilc C: \ASUS.XRM-MS
slmgr.vbs -ipk xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx-xxxxx

where xxx = your product key

It can take about 30 seconds for the second command to process.
It will display a message when complete.

Wish I saw that before I tried it.. but oh well 🙂