Win 98 installation question for those technogeeks here at Lit

[BlondGirl]

My cousin has called me with a question that I have no known resource to provide an answer except to beg for help from you fine folks here at Lit.

She took her computer in the BestBuy to have a new hard drive installed and the guys there did a moronic job.

She is now trying to restore her computer and is stuck at the installation for Win98. The problem is the proof of purchase "key". The one listed on the exterior case of her installation disk has room for 20 characters. The computer program is requesting 25. She has tried putting in zeros in various places to fill in but has had no luck. Any suggestions?

If you would prefer to IM or PM me instead of responding here, that is fine. My AOLIM title is

BDSM Blondgirl

Thanks everyone.

 

[Belilica]

There are hyphens in the product key, I think... try entering those too???

 

[fgarvb1]

I'm going to take a stab at this and hope i'm wrong.

I think the difference goes something like this.

my gateway restore disk has twenty numbers for the product code. OEM is three of them

My windows 98se that i bought a couple of weeks ago has twenty five numbers in the product code. None of them are OEM.


My guess is that they did not use her disk to reinstall windows because they did not know how or did not have the disk.

Someone has the wrong case or the wrong disk.

When i could not find my code one time gateway gave me one they used for times like these

 

[Bob_Bytchin]

I'm going to take a stab at this and hope i'm wrong.

I think the difference goes something like this.

my gateway restore disk has twenty numbers for the product code. OEM is three of them

My windows 98se that i bought a couple of weeks ago has twenty five numbers in the product code. None of them are OEM.


My guess is that they did not use her disk to reinstall windows because they did not know how or did not have the disk.

Someone has the wrong case or the wrong disk.

A product key from one Win98 Certificate will work on other copies of Win98. It's all done by algorithm.

 

[BlondGirl]

Thanks for the help. She has a compaq computer and has never restored it before. She is very angry about the level of service that she got there and at her description of their inability to provide the most routine of functions makes me agree.

I did get a busload of codes for her to try and all of them contain the required 25 characters.

Thank you to everyone who offered help to these two damsels in distress in our hour of need.

 

[thumbs2_ca]

No problem I hope one of them works.
Good luck