Hi,

recently purchased T61 and it has recovery partition deleted. I have Dell OEM installation media, would it work straight up, or could I implement my license code to it?

Yippee, activation worked, had to only change the product key.

You can make a custom DVD for future use where the key is already changed, check out vLite (nLite for Vista), you can add Multiple certificates to $OEM$\$$\SYSTEM32\OEM folder so it will work for your Dell, IBM, and most other systems you have.

you actually got a Dell OEM disc to work on your Thinkpad? Whenever I've tried using a Dell OEM Windows (re) install disc, it only wanted to work on a Dell machine, and a machine close to the exact model at that.....

The key difference would be restore media versus oem install media.

Dell discs nearly always work on any machine but the product key will only successfully activate on a Dell machine. So you'd get Windows installed but you'd have to change the product key if you're not on a Dell to get it activated.

Dell has not had that restriction for years, the last Dell disc I saw do that was Win2K