Bradley Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 Well sadly i'm one of the few who still doesn't have a dvd burner. I got an invite to download the new vista build so I downloaded it. After getting excited about trying it, I setup a vmware station to install it to my harddrive. After trying a few times and looking around online, vmware doesnt work for installing vista... Any ideas to help? Just another question: In Xp when you install and enter your serial number, it sends it to microsoft. If you install xp on a different computer with that same number, it'll say its not genuine. (That can be fixed with cracks but thats not the point ). I was wondering if these current vista builds did the same thing. Say I install it on one computer, use that number. Then a month later I get another computer and use that same nubmer. Do the experimental builds check for the serials being genuine and is it going to yell at me for using a non-genuine key? Or do the builds not check for that yet? Thanks. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chrysaor Posted August 29, 2006 Share Posted August 29, 2006 Just mount the iso with Daemon tools or whatever and install it. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-177292 Share on other sites More sharing options...
haydio Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 hmm that was a bad answer because when the system goes to reboot hows it going to read from deamon tools? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-177704 Share on other sites More sharing options...
lord_muad_dib Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 you could start the installation while you're on windows. just be sure you've already partitioned the disk and select it in the installation process Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-177711 Share on other sites More sharing options...
koolaidman23 Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 VMware works fine for installing Vista. That is how I installed it. It was super easy. The only wierdness was that the graphics were subpar during installation. Dont worry about that, and you will do just fine. Edit: Better yet, I see you are using the Darwin Bootloader as I am, so I can assure you that you will be able to triple boot with pleasure. The only thing is, that Vista sucks. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-177791 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bradley Posted August 30, 2006 Author Share Posted August 30, 2006 I already setup partitioning before I did this install. Actually daemon tools worked just fine, because in the first part of the installation, it copys all the files that are needed over to that partition, reboots, then reads all the files from the drive, so woo for daemon. Vista seems pretty nice. It'll probally just take a little while to get used to the way everything is setup in there. Im still wondering about activation, I might be getting another laptop soon but i'm not totally sure, so if I activate on this one, I know it will allow me to install it on another computer, but will that computer be registered as un-genuine, when it does the activation check? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-177867 Share on other sites More sharing options...
koolaidman23 Posted August 30, 2006 Share Posted August 30, 2006 I am not sure about this, but I was under the impression that one license could be used on 10 computers... Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-177925 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bradley Posted August 31, 2006 Author Share Posted August 31, 2006 I am not sure about this, but I was under the impression that one license could be used on 10 computers... Thanks but can someone just confirm this? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-178831 Share on other sites More sharing options...
domino Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 confirmed. I've install beta 2 key once for native install and once for vmware install. Installed the same beta 2 key for Pre-Rc 1. used the same key installing 3 installs with no problem. This is on the same computer same hardware, except vmware install. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-178857 Share on other sites More sharing options...
mifki Posted August 31, 2006 Share Posted August 31, 2006 It goes for 10 installs Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-178861 Share on other sites More sharing options...
br0adband Posted September 1, 2006 Share Posted September 1, 2006 The short and sweet answers: If you have a Beta 2 key, it's good for 10 activations meaning 10 (repeat) installations on the same hardware or a mix of installations on up to 10 different machines. After 10 activations, the key will simply no longer work but you'd still be able to install new builds with that "expired" key - you just would not be able to activate the installation and so it'll die in 3 days (I think it's 3 days now, used to be 7). On the installation issue, Vista works differently than previous versions of Windows. It uses WIM (Windows IMages, basically) which are sortakindaalmost like drive images, but it's a big archive of all the goodies. There's no more i386 directory with thousands of compressed files; the WIM file is one big archive of everything that gets expanded during the installation. What does this mean for people without a DVD burner? Well, it's good news actually. Once you acquire the DVD ISO, you can use any virtual CD/DVD software like Daemon Tools, Nero's ImageDrive, Alcohol 120% has one too. It doesn't matter which virtual CD/DVD software you choose to use. Mount the ISO with the virtual CD/DVD software, when the installer begins, follow the instructions CAREFULLY and you'll be good to go. During the initial file copy process, Vista copies the entire contents of the DVD (well, not ALL of it, but pretty much 99% of it) to a partition on your hard drive - usually it's the system partition of the current operating system. It then modifies the boot sector and boot.ini of the currently installed OS to point to the Vista files that are now installed on the hard drive and the process works as if you'd booted off a Vista installer DVD. The installer, after rebooting the computer, does not need access to the ISO file because the contents were dumped directly to the hard drive when you ran the installer from inside Windows. Hope that makes things clearer, and good luck to those without burners. One piece of advice: READ EVERYTHING CAREFULLY when installing Vista - make sure you READ EVERYTHING because if you don't READ EVERYTHING you'll end up deleting your entire damned hard drive. The Vista disk partitioner isn't anywhere near as simplistic as the old "blue screen white text" installer; that was easy compared to what we're dealing with now because of just how easily you can delete everything on the hard drive in one fell swoop. If you have any experience with using Linux and GPartEdit and other Linux disk partitioning tools, the Vista installer works in a similar principle meaning if you don't READ EVERYTHING you're going to end up wiping your entire hard drive clean in a split second. Choose some blank space on the drive, or make sure you create some blank drive space using Partition Magic or Acronis Disk Director or whatever tool you like - the Vista disk partitioner cannot do shrinking/resizing of partitions during the installation. BUT... once you get Vista up and running, you can shrink/expand partitions. Ain't that cool? So READ EVERYTHING, please. And be careful... have fun, too :pirate2: bb Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-179021 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bradley Posted September 3, 2006 Author Share Posted September 3, 2006 Alrighty, thanks that cleared a lot of things up for me . Anyone know how many liscences xp pro corp goes for? Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-180272 Share on other sites More sharing options...
stryder Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 The short and sweet answers: If you have a Beta 2 key, it's good for 10 activations meaning 10 (repeat) installations on the same hardware or a mix of installations on up to 10 different machines. After 10 activations, the key will simply no longer work but you'd still be able to install new builds with that "expired" key - you just would not be able to activate the installation and so it'll die in 3 days (I think it's 3 days now, used to be 7). bb Not sure how accurate this is. The email I got from Microsoft didn't say I could only install it 10 times, it said it was good on upto 10 computers. Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-180317 Share on other sites More sharing options...
br0adband Posted September 3, 2006 Share Posted September 3, 2006 Well, you might have a point here. But the people I know that work in the beta labs in Redmond tell me it's good for 10 activations; each activation is tied to specific machine, so the problem is this: I can't ever get anyone (even the friends that work for Microsoft) to say yes or no when I ask them if I reinstall Vista using my Beta 2 key 11 times and activate it 10, will it simply not activate the 11th time and lock me out or what? If I (or we, as the case may be) could just get a specific useful answer to that questionj, I think we'd all be better off. The info I have says 10 activations, regardless of reactivating the exact same hardware configuration or not (meaning multiple installs on the same machine). So... install away, when it locks up and won't activate, then you'll know you crossed the threshold. bb Link to comment https://www.insanelymac.com/forum/topic/26183-installing-vista-with-no-dvd-burner/#findComment-180629 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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