I just bought a Lenovo ThinkPad SL410 with Win 7 Pro 64-bit installed. Of course it's crippled with bloatware and of course I wiped the hard drive clean for preparation of a fresh and clean clean install of Win 7 Pro 64-bit. I was gonna use my installation disc and product key from my MS action pack subscription account but figured I shouldn't waste it on this laptop since it came with its own product key.
Before wiping the hard drive I did create recovery discs from the pre-configured/installed hidden recovery partition. How can I install the bundled Windows 7 Pro 64-bit minus the bloatware (as if I'm doing a fresh install from a retail disc) so that it uses the product key included with the laptop?
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Can't you download a vanilla OEM Windows 7 Pro disc and enter your CD key underneath the laptop? I recall someone posting about that and how you can dl DVD images from the digitalriver.com site...
As far as I know, all those CD keys listed on stickers underneath laptops are for OEM versions.. -
Well, I believe product keys stamped on the machine itself are native only to that vendor (Lenovo, Dell, Toshiba, etc.) and you must have their branded re-installation disc to use it.
This looks like it would be a lot of work to do this so I'm just gonna use the MAPS prod. key :/
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Yes, That's true. I've always done clean installs but I use MSDN disks which will take nothing but MSDN key's.
Get a Windows 7 disk and add the license. The trick to use a dstribution that is the same type as the key.
Renee -
Have you guys actually tried a generic OEM install disc? Your Win 7 should have come with a sticker with the number. You have to dig a little on the net to find the vanilla OEM discs, but they are out there. It doesn't hurt to try instead of just assuming it won't work...
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Restore using the recovery discs, then backup the activation/license with my ABR tool (see sig). Then do a clean install using an OEM or retail disc, and restore the license/activation. Warning that Win7 support in ABR is in beta.
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Fresh install of bundled Win7
Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by anuvatec, Jan 19, 2010.