Vista copyright protection

[CodeMonkey]

Hello fellow boarders,
In my ongoing struggle to reinstall my (deeply) corrupted Vista system, I am losing patience. Twice has Microsoft said they sent for me an install disk, and twice has it never arrived even weeks after is was supposedly shipped. I'm wondering if I could download (illegally) an image of the install disk, and then install Vista with my valid and legitimately-obtained product key. Will it be the same as if I had used Microsoft's supplied disk? I hope so.

Thanks

[cpjust]

I believe it should be. All the editions of Vista (Home, Home Premium, Business & Ultimate) are all the same DVD image; it's just the key you use to install it that disables certain features depending on the edition the key is for.
Although, there might be a difference between the MSDN, Retail & OEM versions of the DVD. Also, you'd want to thoroughly scan it for viruses...

[CodeMonkey]

I see. Yes, the most reliable image I found online is an MSDN copy, in contrast to the "support" copy I was supposedly sent. Perhaps there will be no debilitating difference.

[cpjust]

You can always download it and see. It will either accept your product key or it won't.

[CodeMonkey]

Yes, it worked.

For anyone out there who ever tries to prepare a Vista Installation via USB flash drive, using GParted, make sure to format to NTFS. Some guides online say FAT32, but that gave me nothing but trouble.

[Elysia]

I think you mean NTFS. Yes, I have installed Win7 from a USB drive a many times and NTFS works just as fine.