is this a stolen product key?

[toyota]

my parents, who live in a different state, screwed up their Windows Vista bad enough to need a re installation. one of my fathers employees installed Windows 7 Ultimate and it starts with 00426-oem. so is that just a stolen oem copy that he installed on their pc? I googled the full key and it appears to be an HP OEM product key.

 

[mechBgon]

The product key doesn't contain any numbers, I think you've got the product ID there. If they had legal Vista before, then their product key would be on the COA sticker for an OEM variant of Windows. The COA should be (emphasis on SHOULD) adhered to the chassis and it would say what flavor of Vista it was for (Ultimate, Home Premium, etc).

 

[toyota]

the product ID is what starts with 00426-oem. I am just trying to make sure they wont run into issues down the road.

 

[RebateMonger]

These Microsoft Genuine Advantage Forums include Micosoft and other experts who can help you determine the validity of your license. Go to the appropriate forum, run the WGA validation tool as instructed in the stickies, and post the results on the forum.

http://social.microsoft.com/Forums/en/category/genuine

Note: Those aren't "Enforcement Forums". The aim of the folks on those Forums is to help people with "Genuine Windows" questions and problems.

 

[toyota]

well they live no where near me and getting them to do that may not be as easy as it sounds. lol

 

[ViRGE]

00426-OEM is the prefix for a System Locked Preinstallation (SLP) Win7 Ultimate install. Since your parents' computer came with Vista and now has Win7, it wouldn't be keyed for Win7. So yeah, it was installed with an HP SLP key along with a hack of some kind to make it take effect.