Several months ago (in June I believe) I POSTED a question regarding my wish to accomplish a CLEAN install of Vista on my HP machine.  Of course, when I bought the machine, I did not receive any O/S reinstall disk.  Rather, I was FORCED to create my own factory installation recovery disks, which, of course, include all the crapware included by the box maker.  My question was whether I could use another person's reinstallation disk to do a clean install, and then use my legitimate product key to authenticate the installation.  Well, I finally got AROUND to doing this, and it worked out PRETTY well.  About the only wrinkle was, because I used a new clean hard drive, I had to change the product key to reflect the key I received with my machine.  There was also a problem or two with drivers, but I managed to get those resolved. 

Just thought some of the readers might be interested in how this process worked out.Good to hear it worked out and thanx for stopping back to let us know...