[s0l1d]

I have the MSDN Vista DVD which is suppose to contain all versions of Vista. I was thinking of testing it out on the my Dell Inspiron 6400.

As I have search around and have understand that I am suppose to be able to install Vista without using a product key and I would get a 30 day trial. However, as the installation prompts me for the product key and I just click Next to skip it, it sort of hangs around, I can hear the disc spinning and laser zapping, but after a long while, the hour-glass went away and it stays in the product key prompt.

Does anyone have any idea what is going on and how do I proceed with the installation of the 30 day trial?

BTW, on my Dell Inspiron 6400 notebook, I have left the 38MB Dell Utility partition at the beginning of the drive and the rest is a single partition that is not formatted yet.

[DosFreak]

Disc could be bad or the cdrom.

You could try typing in the key and not checking the activate checkbox if you thing the installer is buggy. You can always easily change the key later.

[Pezo]

I had no problem installing on Compaq laptop - just waiting for my MS partnership Jan. shipment with my legal keys to activate it.