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so my computer had Vista installed and i recently bought the upgrade to windows 7. i installed it and its working great.

So what happens to my vista license?

My girlfriend likes vista and wants it installed on her laptop.

Can i use my legit version of Vista and install it on her laptop?

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3 Answers

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Legally you can't as you bought the upgrade to Windows 7 rather than a new license. This means that your Vista license is still "active". So if you girlfriend tried to activate Vista on her machine with your key it would fail the WGA check - if not straight away then at some point in the future.

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It will not fail WGA, simply because it was upgraded on another machine. If it is OEM, it will fail WGA, because it has been activated on another machine. If it is retail it will activate fine. You will, however, be in violation of the EULA, so while it may work fine, MS may not like it so much.

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i bought this from Fry's. its the OEM system builders pack. so youre saying it wont activate? im better off getting her a legit copy? – Ricardo Angeles Oct 31 '09 at 18:15
It will activate if you follow the phone activation process, most likely. However, your Win 7 upgrade technically won't be legal, though it will continue to work – MDMarra Oct 31 '09 at 22:15
The only way to really avoid these situations is to always buy the full retail versions, which can be transferred to new machines. – Joe Internet Nov 12 '09 at 4:29
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As mentioned an upgrade version of Windows voids the licence it is upgrading, so you can't legally use it again. However... If you are in the EU, carefully check the copy of Windows 7 you bought. Due to the way Windows 7 was being distributed in the EU, Microsoft said that an Upgrade version would not be available until 2010, so Retail versions were discounted to the price of upgrade versions, many retailers still branded these as upgrades.

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