I just bought a T400 off ebay. It came with Windows 7 pro 32bit. I have Windows pro 64bit on my T61. Is it possible to use the T400 recovery disk on my T61, so that the 32 bit OS is on it, and then install the 64bit onto the T400.

The T400 recovery disk will not self activate on your T61 from my experience.

After using the Windows 7 recovery media on your T61 you may have three days to enter a different key code.

Of course your mileage may vary.

Brad

The T400 has a SLIC in the BIOS for System-Locked Pre-installation, while the T61 doesn't. So you may well find the T400 recovery disk wont work as expected on a T61.

However, you could install the Win 7 Pro x64 on your T400 using the OEM key on the certificate of authenticity on the T400... this may not validate on-line but should validate over the phone. Since both installed copies on Win 7 pro x64 have their own legitimate key, you would be OK from a EULA point of view.

Cheers,

Bill B.

Yes, my ideas may not work. I was thinking of actually switching the physical hard drive. I was hoping the lenovo partition on from the t400 hard drive would come on.

It could work. I did a swap from T61 to X61T once. Not the best route as per EULA but you could punch in Middleton BIOS (since it has SLIC modification) and see if that works.

well, I just went through crash heaven. I have no idea why? but it could have been the hard drives being swapped. Joy.

The problem I am faced with is the COA is unreadable. I tried asking lenovo, but they were less than helpful. And, MS has been the same. MS said that the 32bit was OEM and married to the motherboard of the t400.

I have a T400 with windows 7 32bit, but I need 64bit (ddr3 8gb 50bucks; ddr2 8gb --t61-- 150 bucks)


On my t61 I have a legal full retail 64bit, and I have Microsoft Office Pro 2010 (I am allowed to install it on three computers).

I don't know if it would be possible to upgrade from a 32bit windows 7 to a 64bit windows 8 later this year. If so, I could hold off everything until later this year.

It's ridiculous that I have two legal copies of the software, but they're on the wrong machines. Go figure.

Maybe I could drop Windows XP into the t61, and install the 64bit on the t400. The t61 is going to be a legacy backup machine anyway. I think it could still get me by in a crunch for a long time if needed. But, Windows XP support goes away in 2014.

If anyone has any ideas that would be great. Also to put monkeys into the pie, I am installing a larger hard drive into the t400. I was thinking about 320 gigs. (the ones in the t400 has 800 days of power on. the t61 has 397 days of power one.)

I don't know. Oh, the vagaries of the MS license laws. Maybe I should just be a pirate. I could say arrgh a lot.

I would suggest MyDigital Life forums where they help with Activation issues on machines with OEM Activation etc.

Short answer:
Middleton SLIC 2.1 BIOS + OEM Activation Tools

I just used a t400 recovery on the 2 t61s a few days ago and it does ask you for the key.. I have enterprise license so I used that. Just saves me time from installing Windows 7 on a bare t61. Actually have a few more to do this weekend for t60s also

You can download Speccy by Piriform from download.com (make sure you only accept downloading Speccy, as download.com has gotten bad about offering/pushing toolbars, etc.) The program is free and will give you the 25 digit key for your installed operating system.

After downloading, run Speccy and click on the left menu "Operating System." The Windows Key will be listed on the right side next to "Serial Number."