I'm in the process of wiping & reinstalling a new operating system on an old computer. I'm installing Vista and have some open licenses but no installation disk. I do have some Dell OEM Vista installtion disks. Is it OK to use one of those disks to install the operating system on another Dell computer. Since I do have the actual licenses spare to cover the installation I think that I'm OK legally. I don't think that a Dell OEM disk asks for a license #, is there a way to go in later and "convert" it to the open license?
Failing that is there somewhere that I can down the Vista installation program so that I can go there a straight install and use the Open license # when prompted?
I think that it WILL prompt you for a license, even though it is an OEM version. And I'm guessing that your open license will work as the "good to go" signal probably gets issued by Microsoft's activation servers and the disk itself probably isn't matched to a specific license number, but waits for the "OK" to activate from Microsoft's servers. I'd just try it if I were you. After all, what have you got to lose?
open license and oem media likely will not work together - M$ though, should be able to provide you with replacement media to go with the open license.