Chances of success of getting Vista refund?

Hey there guys, I just ordered a T400 from Lenovo... I wanted the Vista Home Premium x64 edition, but they did not have that as a selectable option...

So, I called them up, and they pretty much said they can't give me that as an option, but offered me Vista Ultimate (presumably 64-bit, even though that's not technically an option either??) instead, but they'd tack on 5 days to my order. I just declined because I'm unwilling to wait longer than I have to.

Plus, I can get Vista Ultimate 64-edition for close to $100 from a place that supplies college students anyway, so I figured that I'll just do that.

But now I realized that Lenovo was the company that was trying to make that one guy sign an NDA to get his Windows Vista refund (which is guaranteed in the Vista EULA, apparently) ... so, I'm wondering if anyone has any information on it... anyone done this or something similar with success with Lenovo? Has anyone... erm... "not" signed one of these NDA's to get the refund?

Most importantly, do I have even a snowball's chance in a fire-pit to get this sorted out in the next couple of days?


link for NDA scandle:
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080831-lenovo-wont-refund-the-windows-tax-without-an-nda.html

 

I would have ordered the laptop with Vista Basic which would have saved you $50 off the order and bough the student priced version of Vista Ultimate 64 for $100.. In reality you only spend $50 bucks for it...

 

Upgrading to Vista Business is only $22.50. That's what I would do.

 

Yeah... I thought Vista Home Premium 64-bit would be all I would need... so I selected it thinking I could just call them up and request the 64-bit version (that way there would be no change in price)... but I didn't want to extend my wait by 5 days after I talked to them on the phone.

Plus, I just got an email a couple of hours ago saying it had shipped, so there's no changing it now.

I guess I could be satisfied with the 32-bit version of Home Premium, but I'd really like the 64-bit version if I can get it...

 

You could always try purchasing the 64-bit Vista disc from Microsoft and using that along with the key to do a clean install with 64-bit Home Premium. I'm not positive that this will work since there is always the chance that the Lenovo key won't work with a regular disc, but it's worth a shot. You have to enter your Vista key on this MS site to get the current cost but when I first heard of this it was about $12. Sadly my T400 has not shipped yet so I can't test it out for you, but perhaps someone else with a regular vista disc will be able to (32 or 64, doesn't matter for this test). By regular I mean either a retail or TechNet/MSDN disc.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/1033/ordermedia/default.mspx

Best of luck,
Wowy

 

so take 64 bit ultmated they offer you and then get copy 32 bit media and do clean install with that it will take the same key

 

Any regular Vista media would in theory work. It's really just to make sure the key that comes with the laptop isn't some kind of crazy OEM locked deal that requires a special disc. With XP it was almost guaranteed that your key wouldn't work with a retail disc but this may have changed with Vista. At least Microsoft doesn't license the 32 and 64-bit editions differently any more.

Wowy

 

So, what you're saying is that if I get the 64-bit media, I should be able to just plug my key in and it'll install the 64-bit version of Home Premium like I want?

 

Yup. The media (32 or 64 bit) contains all versions of Vista except Enterprise and installs the correct one based on your key. BUT there's no guarantee that Lenovo doesn't use some OEM key that won't work with regular discs. I can't test it to be sure until my laptop arrives sometime later this month.

Wowy

 

Alright, thank you. I'll get one of the 64-bit DVDs and try it out and post whether it was successful or not. Supposedly, my laptop should be here the 15th, so I would assume that I could post by the 17th either way.

Thanks again for all of your help

 

Alright, my machine came in and I've installed Home Premium 64-bit and activated it using the ABR utility mentioned in the forums, and it works great.

If anyone wants to change from 32-bit to 64-bit, I highly recommend that tool. It made it easy as cake.

ABR Utility:
http://directedge.us/content/abr-activation-backup-and-restore

2 guides (on this forum) that are extremely useful:
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=298467
http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=294974

Good luck everyone.