Copying the Vista disc

[nonymouse]

I should start by pointing out that this is for legal purposes only!

My school has informed me that I can install Vista on my home machine
under the terms of their licence. But I don't want to be without the
original (or a copy of) disc as I'm sure at some point when I install
some hardware or similar I may be prompted to insert the disc.

One of the technicians has already attempted to make a copy but failed
so I'm assuming I could be in for a rough ride here. Worst case
scenario, if I cannot copy it I would rather stick to XP (for which I
have the disc).

 

[Shane Nokes]

He must not be a very smart tech lol

Any standard imaging software could make an image of the DVD.

I've done it already a few times.

 

[Dustin Harper]

Get a new tech! You can use pretty much any disk copying software.
Nero works fine. I have a couple copies (32 and 64 Bit), just in case.
You have to have a legal key, so copies are no big deal...

Good luck!

 

[nonymouse]

Get a new tech! You can use pretty much any disk copying software.
Nero works fine. I have a couple copies (32 and 64 Bit), just in case.
You have to have a legal key, so copies are no big deal...

Good luck!

Cheers for that - 'He must not be a very smart tech lol' - don't
forget we're a school! Can't afford the smart people, they cost too
much. I have nero but assumed it wouldn't work - not disimilar to
trying to copy retail dvd's etc.

Thanks for you help

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Just a bit of additional info for you: A Vista install copies everything to
the hard drive. More acurately, the image that setup places on the drive
contains everything, not just the drivers and files specific to your system.
You should never be prompted to insert the disk for a driver or file.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Lee]

I should start by pointing out that this is for legal purposes only!

My school has informed me that I can install Vista on my home machine
under the terms of their licence. But I don't want to be without the
original (or a copy of) disc as I'm sure at some point when I install
some hardware or similar I may be prompted to insert the disc.

One of the technicians has already attempted to make a copy but failed
so I'm assuming I could be in for a rough ride here. Worst case
scenario, if I cannot copy it I would rather stick to XP (for which I
have the disc).

There's no real reason why you should need the disk once Vista is installed.
The days of needing to insert the CD all the time went out with Win9x.
Having said that, there is software available that bypasses copy protection,
"AnyDVD" is one that comes to mind. I mention it because it wouldn't do you
any good to copy a Vista DVD unless you could legally install and activate
it anyway.

 

[Joe Morris]

My school has informed me that I can install Vista on my home machine
under the terms of their licence. But I don't want to be without the
original (or a copy of) disc as I'm sure at some point when I install
some hardware or similar I may be prompted to insert the disc.

One of the technicians has already attempted to make a copy but failed
so I'm assuming I could be in for a rough ride here. Worst case
scenario, if I cannot copy it I would rather stick to XP (for which I
have the disc).

Because of the way that the Vista disks are configured, some mastering
programs get confused and dup just a part of the material -- the clue is
that the duplication process for 2-gigs-plus-change of data takes just a few
seconds to complete. (Don't we wish...) I've had that happen (admittedly
in the tech beta program; I've not tried it with RTM disks) with an OEM
distribution of Roxio.

If this happens, the solution is to use the mastering program to create an
ISO file from the media that failed (or use an existing ISO file), then burn
that file to blank media. The Roxio program that couldn't copy disk-to-disk
made usable copies [*] using this technique.

[*] Caveat: several users - including yours truly - have experienced
problems with duplicated disks burned at high speed, presumably due to
insufficient error recovery function in the setup environment. If you
experience failures during the file copy phase of installation, duplicate
the disk as described above, but burn the fresh copy at 1x.

Incidentally...as another responder has pointed out, you aren't likely to be
asked to insert the disk due to the installation of new hardware or software
(that's one of the reasons for the significantly increased hard disk
requirement in Vista) but I agree that you want a copy of the disk in case
you want to rebuild the system, or it becomes corrupt and you have to do a
fresh installation. I rebuild both my home and office systems -- a total of
nine boxes, plus numerous virtual images -- every couple of years, and it's
amazing how many barnacles get scraped off by doing so.

Joe Morris