OEM Vista puzzlement

[fimbles]

My old laptop running vista home premium recently expired after i "adjusted" some things inside.. I have my old original vista disks still, and obtained my product key from my hard drive using magic jellybean finder.(as i stupidly binned my laptop, prod sticker and all.)

I ordered myself a nice new gaming pc which is due this friday, hoping to install my old vista upon it and save a few sheckles. However after trawling the net and reading the fine " which vista for you" post on these very pages im stumped.

I presume i have the OEM version since it was bundled with my late laptop.

My questions...

Can i install this on my new pc in any way? I understand this version only works on one machine, but microsoft activation centre make exeptions? Can i ring them for a "new" key of some sort? Is it one machine at a time?

Any tips or clarification would be most appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

[DelJo63]

the OEM cd is specific to the laptop hardware and thus the drivers it would install
will not match your new system.

SOMETIMES, you can use the OEM to install elsewhere and then struggle with getting
the correct drivers to match that hardware.

BE AWARE, that major differences (eg AMD vs Intel) will void this approach!

 

[fimbles]

Thanks joebeard.

Your answer answered a lot of my questions.

I gave in to the temptaion of my new pc and rang around local pc shops. Managed to get an original vista OEM for 90 pounds.

Luckily enough, no driver issues.