question! (im gonna kill vista)

ok here goes!

i had winxp pro sp2, and i bought the upgrade. i stuck in teh 64bit dvd, and away i went trying to find the drivers for my ms-1036. after about 3 hours, i decided this wasnt happening. so i stuck in the 32 bit dvd, and took off.

during the install, the battery died on my laptop. (stupid me.) it stopped in the middle of the install, and wouldnt let me install it. (wouldnt let me click on my hardrive after i restarted the install?) o.0 so anyways, i did a format and a clean install. (once again, on the 64 bit version.) so now i've got a problem, i have 30 days to activate. i can put in my key again, but the darned thingy says its for upgrade only. WTH?! now what are my options, other than buying a $400 set of numbers?

 

ok, i read through the forums, and i answered my own question. apparently, this is a problem to more than me.

 

You can't use a upgrade key with a full install, it just doesn't work that way. You need to have upgraded from XP to be abl;e to use the upgrade key you have. The only way to do it without having to buy the full version is to install XP on your laptop and upgrade it to Vista.