My question:
Will the windows registration code on the gateway work to legitimately register the OEM windows install?
-Darth
From my experiences with "department store" brands, probably not. The serial number was probably part of a group assigned to the Gateway branded OEM version of Windows that came with the machine.
Go to Gateway's site, and search for support for your model and/or part number. If they work anything like HP (with whom I've had experience), you can probably order a replacement installation disk for the proper version from Gateway for around $20 - $25 because you already have the license that came with the machine, and all they're selling you is a replacement for the installation media.
It does have a recovery partition, however I believe it makes you burn CD's (approximately 6 of them), I've tried that on another family members HP and it sucks. It probably comes with all the bloatware too.
If you're lucky, the recovery partition works like others I've seen, it isn't like HP's system that allows you to burn one copy of the installation disks. Instead, it may re-install the entire Gateway branded version of the OS. If so, you can always delete the bloatware once you've re-installed Windows.
If that's the way it works, be sure to copy all of your files you want to save because the re-installation will wipe the drive. You can do this by removing the drive and connecting it as a slave to another machine.
Be VERY sure the other machine is virus free and that its anti-virus and anti-spyware software if fully up to date, and deep scan it before you connect the Gateway drive to it. Then, when you reboot with the Gateway drive connected to it, without trying to read the drive, do another deep scan on that drive, and delete (not just fix) anything it finds to be infected.
If all of that fails, and you want to install a generic copy of Windows, you'll want to delete all partitions on the drive to get rid of the recovery partition and have all the available space for your new setup.
Before you start, use another machine to download all of the drivers from Gateway. If it uses an Intel chipset, also go to Intel's site to see if there are any later drivers for the particular chipset, and check the appropriate manufacturers for any newer drivers for video, sound, network, etc. If you use downloadable AV and anti-spyware software, have those installation files available, too. Once you've done your basic installation, you can use a flash drive to transfer all of them to your Downloads folder and install them from there. I strongly recommend installing your protection software before allowing the machine to go online, even to activate and/or update Windows.
Hope that helps.
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