Genuine windows license

peteym · 25-10-2006 10:45am #1

I unfortunately have an illegal copy of windows on my computer and now because of that I have a constant stream of annoying popup messages telling me that my copy is not genuine.
If I were to purchase a genuine windows license, what exactly happens then?
Is it just a case of me recieving a serial number or something and entering that in somewhere?

Conar · 25-10-2006 10:48am

That depends really.
I think that a lot of the illegal copies of XP floating around are the corporate versions, so your standard version key would not be accepted.
You'd probably need to reinstall.

peteym · 25-10-2006 11:04am

if I was to reinstall, would I still keep everything on my hard drive???

aFlabbyPanda · 25-10-2006 11:06am

if you buy a genuine version and the key doesnt work you can do a repair which will overwrite the system files and take the new key while leaving everything else intact.

peteym · 25-10-2006 11:10am

any idea how much it costs to purchase a genuine license?

Conar · 25-10-2006 11:15am

All depends really.
You looking for Pro, Home or Media Center?
www.komplett.ie are reasonably priced for the OS's.

EDIT:
If you can hold out another couple of months Vista will be out.
Would be a shame to buy XP if you were planning to update to Vista.
You could also download the free Windows Vista RC1 (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/) and use it until the full version is released.

peteym · 25-10-2006 12:28pm

cool! thanks for your help

peteym · 25-10-2006 12:39pm

is there any risks in getting this beta version of vista - like its not gonna feck up my computer or anything is it? - are you using it?

Webmonkey · 25-10-2006 12:54pm

It is still possible to remove them popups but you should really do the right thing and get a geniune version of xp

If you are an average user, i would keep well away from vista until it is offically released.

aFlabbyPanda · 25-10-2006 1:11pm

peteym wrote:

is there any risks in getting this beta version of vista - like its not gonna feck up my computer or anything is it? - are you using it?

what spec is your pc? vista is still beta so it could cause you all kinds of aggro. I used the RC2 version recently and still had problems with apps that run just fine on XP.

peteym · 25-10-2006 1:44pm

intel pentium 4, cpu 3 ghz, 250g hard drive.......

Capt'n Midnight · 25-10-2006 6:58pm

peteym wrote:

is there any risks in getting this beta version of vista - like its not gonna feck up my computer or anything is it? - are you using it?

if you upgrade XP then you won't be able do downgrade (even if it says it does don't expect it to work)

Conar · 25-10-2006 7:35pm

You can't actually upgrade to Vista.
At least not to the beta versions anyway.

ethernet · 25-10-2006 7:58pm

BrianjG wrote:

what spec is your pc? vista is still beta so it could cause you all kinds of aggro. I used the RC2 version recently and still had problems with apps that run just fine on XP.

I found setting compatability to XP SP2 solved most of these problems for me.

Genuine windows license

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