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Product Key for Win7 Home Premium
Hello there forum-goers. I have a bit of a conundum, and haven't had too much support from Dell tech support or customer service yet, and I wanted to see if anyone here could help me.
A couple of weeks ago, I went to perform a fresh install of Win7 on my parents Dell laptop (Inspiron 1764). I wanted to use clean media (read: windows 7 only), and have a copy at home for home premium, so I went to install it using that disk. When I went to get the product key off the underside of the laptop, it had been "erased" by the heat of the computer, and COMPLETELY unreadable. "No worries" I thought: I'll just use our good friend the Magical Jelly bean to extaract the product key, and I'll be good to go!
Well, not so much, it seems. A couple of days later, I saw it hadn't activated, so I went to activate it manually...and thats where the fun began. Apparently the key embedded into the OS was an OEM product key, which cannot be activated by Microsoft. I was told by them I need the COA key from the bottom of the laptop....which is gone. I'm currently on hold entering hour 2 after speaking with tech support, they decided to transfer me to customer support....any suggestions?? ...and no, I don't want to do a factory reset with the dell disks, because I don't like all of the extra software that's installed with it.
I took a picture of the underside of the laptop, so, if someone from Dell would like the proof, id be glad to show them what it looks like.
I was told by one of the earlier tech people I spoke with that I would need a $200+ service contract with Dell to fix this, but that seems asinine, since I could theoretically just buy a new product key from Microsoft for $100. I just would REALLY like to use the product that I already legally purchased. In hindsight, I suppose I should make copies of any COA's on computers I have....which is weird because my personal ACER laptop which is 2 years older looks pristine...gr!
Well, here I am at 45min of hold time. I think I'm going to go enjoy mother's day with the family, and see if the support group here can help any of us out.
Service Tag and Case No. removed as privacy policy per TOU>
Philip_Yip
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7 Technologist
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May 13th, 2012 12:00
You need to use a Dell Reinstallation DVD which looks like the image below:
As you are in the United States you can request Dell Media by following the link here. There may or may not be a small fee as your system is out of warranty. These discs are clean like the standard Windows Disc except that when installed through a Dell BIOs they automatically unlock and there is no need to enter a product key.
The key obtained by Magical Jellybean will give you the Dell SLP System Locked Preinstallation Key which will differ from the key on the Windows COA and won't be illegible for manual activation. If you had the key on the COA you could activate it by phone.
P.S. I've complained about this issue alot please promote my Idea here which is to improve the stickers so they don't have a readily fadable paper texture but a metallic or plastic finish.
In addition when entering your Service Tag on the drivers and downloads page it only lists one driver for your system - you will need to select all the drivers for Inspiron 1764. You will need all the following:
R260746 Dell Notebook Software
R242805 Intel HM55 Chipset
R243176 Intel Management Engine Interface
R242825 Realtek Card Reader
R271008 Intel Graphics
R254506 Turbo Boost Technology Driver
R257960 Turbo Boost Technology Application
R223361 Conexant Modem D400 Driver
MODEM_J5F69_A01_SETUP_ZPE Conexent Modem D400 Application
R156757 Conexant Modem D400 Diagnostics
MODEM_DPP14_A00_SETUP_ZPE Conexant Modem Utility
R242823 Realtek Ethernet
R237742 Dell Wireless 1397
R285943 Alps Touchpad
R265301 Realtek Audio
R272666 Dell Quickset
Dell Support Centre