3 days left to validate Vista. How is this possible?

I am trying to install a Vista Home Premium Academic upgrade on an old Dell Desktop. Prior to wiping the hard drive, I had XP Home on it with resolution much better than VGA (Can't remember the resolution setting).

I wiped the hard drive. Then installed my DELL copy of XP Home again. I had troubles with this as I could not get it to shift off VGA mode. I tried all (I thought) of the drivers on the Dell CD containing drivers. No change. :cry

The Dell has never had Vista on it before. It is NOT connected to the Internet. Up until yesterday it only had a CD-Rom drive. Yesterday I installed a CD/DVD Writer so it would have been physically impossible to install Vista by a CD previously anyhow.

I hoped that by installing Vista HP over XP Home that this might also give me the option to change the resolution. That didn't work, now I have Vista in VGA mode.

What really annoys me is that MS tells me I only have 3 days left to activate.
How is this possible as it wasn't installed until yesterday?

Thanks for reading this so far. Any comments / suggestions will be appreciated. Dell desktop is an Optiplex GX 260 (I think), 768megs of Ram, was XP Home with SP2. I know it would be better with more RAM.

Also if I install a graphics card, will it override the built-in graphics card?

Need help. Only 3 days to go.

Bazza

 

Make that Dell Optiplex GX 620. Bazza

 

Better make that GX 260. Too tired after watching the Indian cricket league 20/20 match very early this morning. Not much sleep. That's my excuse.

Belarc Advisor tells me desktop has a Standard VGA graphics Adapter, but I know I've had better than 640x480 resolution originally. :confused :confused :confused Bazza

 

Purely a guess but I would go for the Intel 845G driver (the 2006) version. Dell used a lot of these cards with 2gb P4's.

DELL
and expand (+) at Video

 

there are other ways when the strait and narrow fail you

 

Dont bring that stuff here, you wont be around long if you do.

 

I Normally don't encorge that kind of stuff but when you already spent who knows how much on this app or some 400 dollar pc and exhausted all Other solutions ect ect
I think there is expection regarding that stuff but ill leave that for him to decide
and btw I did't see anything in the rules about discussing this stuff just no asking or giving it if I missed line please point me there and ill nuke my post

.hack//Ewww I just stepped in MicroCrap

 

Thanks to all for your suggestions. As MA said, it is all legal with legal CD/DVD's. I'd like to keep it that way. I'll probably buy a plug-in graphics card and try that.

I will also check out the BIOS setup and options. If I still can't get Vista to work on this Dell desktop, I'll probably go back to XP Pro or Home as I have a disk for XP pro as well. Thanks again folks. I apppreciate all "hints" and tips. Bazza

 

I've wiped the whole lot again. :cry Reformatted the drive, Installed Dell XP Home discs. It came up as VGA again. :cry Searched an old MG thread that I had started ages ago and came across links to Dell drivers. :cool

Selected R126990.exe and installed it. It is now 1024 x 768 instead of VGA (640 x 480). That is the limit of the Graphics inbuilt card, I think. It's OK by me.

Now to install Vista Home Premium over XP Home. I'll back up XP Home before I start just in case. It will be interesting to see if I only get 3 days to Validate Vista, again. Bazza

 

According to this site, good luck installing vista on that box:

https://sharepoint.uvm.edu/sites/ad/Lists/Vista%20%20Tested%20Hardware/AllItems.aspx

 

Thanks theefool, for the link. :cool I have installed VISTA previously on this box. Only 2 problems on that install. MS told me I had 3 days to activate. Still confused by that. Also Vista (installed over XP Home) was in VGA mode, carried over from the XP Home instal. :cry

I've solved the VGA problem by finding the correct driver update (as mentioned in previous post). I know I won't get Aero because of the inbuilt graphics limitation. Going to make a full backup of XP Home before attempting to install VISTA again. Thanks for the warning though. Bazza

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They didn't try too hard. Once you have the correct video driver there is no major troubles. I had to install the driver a couple of times to get it to stick.

You can't get Aero Glass due to the pathetic inbuilt graphics (1.0), but all else works, and it isn't slow enough to be annoying. I even installed Vista SP 1 without probs. Why bother?, some would ask. I had purchased an upgrade version that wouldn't do a clean install and I had opened the package. :cry

At least I can experiment with Vista, with various programs and tweaks, until I can install a proper upgrade on my Toshiba laptop

Thumbnails attached.

Bazza
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