Windows Vista, eMachines, activations, and ethics

[Bateluer]

An acquaintance purchased and eMachines tower. Then fubared it with a virus, requiring a reformat. The tower had Vista Home Premium X86 installed on it. I was able to pull the key from the registry, because eMachines does not place an OEM sticker with the product key on the case anywhere. Here's the kicker. eMachines does not provide a Vista disk, nor did they provide restore disks with this tower. There is a 10GB partition on the drive that I imagine has something to do with restoring, but I can find no way to access it. There is nothing in the BIOS and no option to boot to it from the POST boot menu.

I then used a Vista HP x8 ISO acquired from Technet and wiped the drive, reinstalling using the key I pulled from the registry. The installer accepted the key and installed without a hitch.

After wards, within Windows, I attempted to activate the machine, where I was greeted the lovely 'This product key is invalid for activation' error because the key was for an OEM license of Vista HP. I then called eMachines support, where they essentially shrugged, and told me to fvck off. I kid you not, their advice was to buy a retail copy of Windows.

After hanging up with them, I contacted MS support and explained the situation. They also shrugged, and said there was nothing they could do because I didn't have a p/n off an OEM Vista DVD. I pointed out that eMachines does not provide that, to which they stated there was nothing they could do and politely asked me if there was anything else they could help me with.

Now, before anyone brings it up, eMachines are not SLP{?}, meaning the Vista keys aren't hard coded into the bios, such as Dell's systems are.

The individual this PC belongs to has specific needs and requires either Vista x86 or XP 32, so I can't just install Ubuntu or the like on it. Nor does this individual have the technical skills to work with the Windows 7 Beta.

They already have a valid license for Vista, and WGA valids it. It just won't activate and displays a countdown of three(3) days.

Getting Vista activated isn't the issue, there are 'unethical' methods to activate this. I'm just a little ticked at eMachines blaming MS and MS blaming eMachines. I don't see how MS can need the OEM vendor to provide certain items and information, but not actually require them to provide the customer with those items and information.

Does anyone know a way to legally get this Vista install activated?

 

[DrGreen2007]

All teh XP based eMachines I worked on had a .GHO file in the hidden partition.
Have you tried to boot with a BartPE disc to see whats on the hidden partition?

 

[Lepard]

To be honest, neither eMachine or MS are wrong here.

You should've used the recovery partition to avoid all this.

To fix this, I would call MS again and ethically say that this copy of Vista is only installed on one machine and that it got hit by a bad virus/trojan. The initial contact should activate it via the phone for you.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: Lepard
To be honest, neither eMachine or MS are wrong here.

You should've used the recovery partition to avoid all this.

I attempted to do, however, could find no way to access it. There doesn't seem to be anyway to boot to the restore partition from the BIOS or the POST Boot Menu. Also, there doesn't seem to be any way to access the partition from within Windows either, the only reason I know its even there is because I looked at Disk Management. If eMachines provided a restore CD or something, perhaps that would allow access to the restore partition. Perhaps there was an application on the original install that was intended to access that partition? I saw nothing at eMachine's support site.

The MS support I spoke with acknowledged that the OEM key was legal and valid, but that there was nothing she could do because it was an OEM key and I needed OEM media.


Edit - I'm not even 100% that that partition is a restore partition. Its just a 10GB mystery partition that I'm presuming to be a restore partition.

 

[pcgeek11]

Originally posted by: Lepard
To be honest, neither eMachine or MS are wrong here.

You should've used the recovery partition to avoid all this.

To fix this, I would call MS again and ethically say that this copy of Vista is only installed on one machine and that it got hit by a bad virus/trojan. The initial contact should activate it via the phone for you.

Actually E-Machines is in the wrong hereIf they didn't install the COA sticker as prescribed in the System Builder License Agreement: The system builder license Requires the builder to attach the COA Sticker in an accessable location on the case. Period.

You have installed the OS using the volume key that it was originally installed from the factory. You are missing the certificates that go with the key. SLIP2

If you had the COA and the key that goes with it Microsoft would have activated the installation. I do this all the time with customers. I have never seen an E-Machine, Dell, HP or ... OEM PC without a COA unless it was removed. Have you looked inside the case as I have seen some of them inside? Even though the license requires it to be in an "accessable location". It should be there unless someone removed it. If you do locate it inside the case change the installation key to that number and retry activation.

pcgeek11

 

[BD2003]

Yeah, there HAS to be a COA on there somewhere, never seen a proper OEM without out. Either way, legal and ethical are two different things. You know that this system has a legal license to use Vista. It will be using a volume licensing key, one that is shared across millions of PCs. Google it.

Dont talk to MS customer support. Use this key, and if it doesnt activate on it's own, use the automated phone line. It wont give you any problems if you answer the questions honestly, if it asks you any at all.

I had the same issue with a compaq I had. Never burned the "restore discs", and I just wanted a clean install without all the crapware. So I used my retail vista disk with the key that was on the COA, and it installed the OS but activation failed. Automated phone activation went through.

 

[Bateluer]

Originally posted by: pcgeek11
[Have you looked inside the case as I have seen some of them inside? Even though the license requires it to be in an "accessable location"
pcgeek11

I did open the case this morning, and emachines put the coa inside the case, on the bottom. Oddly enough, though, the key was different than what was in the registry.

 

[RebateMonger]

When there's a Recovery Partition, there's always a "Hot Key" to enter Recovery Mode. Sometimes it won't tell you the Key(s) during boot. You'd have to look it up in the manual.

Edit:
I looked up a typical eMachines manual. The information is given in my post two down from here.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Bateluer

Originally posted by: pcgeek11
[Have you looked inside the case as I have seen some of them inside? Even though the license requires it to be in an "accessable location"
pcgeek11

I did open the case this morning, and emachines put the coa inside the case, on the bottom. Oddly enough, though, the key was different than what was in the registry.

Inside the case?! That's a new one.

 

[RebateMonger]

Here's the manual for a Vista-based emachines tower:
Emachines Technical Manual
Start reading on page 95 and work your way down the various recovery options

If the PC is bootable, you can start a restore from inside Windows with an Emachines utility.

The original owner also should have created his/her set of Emachines system restore CD/DVD disks, using the utility provided in Windows by Emachines. Like many large OEM PCs, Emachines don't come with a full Vista Install DVD.

If Windows isn't bootable, then you can start an eMachines system restore with the F8 Key during startup.

And, yeah, OEM system builders are required to attach the COA sticker to the case. When the Key found inside Windows doesn't match the Key on the COA sticker, that pretty much means that eMachines uses a BIOS-locked version of Vista. BIOS-locked Keys won't Activate online. They require a phone Activation. If you use an eMachines-supplied version of Windows for the install, it shouldn't require Activation at all.