Thinkpads Forum

This question may belong to the Vista forum but perhaps I will ask here...

I recently ordered Recovery CD set for my T60 to restore the factory state of the hard drive. Instead of the usual set of seven CDs for WinXP Pro what I received was three DVDs for Vista Business. With not a whole lot to lose I gave the Vista Recovery CDs a shot thinking since WinXP Pro CD set doesn't require product key maybe the Vista won't either. It did install just fine and came up with all the Lenovo applications pre-installed as expected- however, when I tried validating Windows Vista it failed giving an error that the product key is invalid. Perhaps the WinXP Pro key is being rejected by the Vista product validation engine, rightfully so.

Now here are my questions:

Where is the machine's original Windows product key stored? Somewhere on the BIOS or the media itself. My guess is this Windows installation doesn't require specific product key, just like the corporate version of WinXP Pro.

Has anyone tried installing Vista this way on a T60 that originally shipped with WinXP Pro? If so, did it work?

Needless to say, after my followup call to Lenovo customer service I have a set of WinXP Pro media set on its way.

The key is embedded in the disk and is a generic Lenovo key. The missing piece of the puzzle is the SLIC data that needs to be in the BIOS ACPI tables that Vista uses to activate your machine. The original T60 machines do not come loaded with this table (You can see your ACPI tables using the latest beta of Everest Ultimate 2007), but the newer machines do. The tables do not appear to be affected or modified by BIOS updates, so that's not the solution either. Basically, any solution would be far too hazardous to your machine to be worth it.

I had previously been wondering whether this would work or not and you did give me my answer.

Kyle, thanks for the explanation.

I have Windows Vista Ultimate up and running (with validation) now for about 3/4 days without any issues. So I guess the ACPI tables you mentioned only effect the original Windows Vista restore media.

Yeah, that's the new method for OEMs to preinstall Windows. Word has it that it will be switching again in the near future since the current method is still too easy to pirate...but that's just a rumor...

Can someone tell me what recovery cds I will need with a new t60 on the way.

It will have XP PRO, but I will be upgrading to vista as its a free upgrade.

Re; Restore Points

I suppose I can set a new restore point on the system after I load vista and that should give me a vista system, but not sure how recovery cds would work since vista was not the native os?

Basically there won't be any vista recovery CDs. You will be able to create the XP ones with the ThinkVantage software (and you should soon after you get it), but the Vista will always be an upgrade that you need to perform from XP.