Re-installing Vista from an ISO file...

[Alexpants]

I've been doing a bit of searching about on the forums for this but I can't find any resolution as yet.
Long story short,
I have an Acer laptop which had Vista pre-installed.
When I installed Ubuntu (8.10) I wiped the partition with Vista on it (whoopsie!)
I am now looking to re-install Vista, but all I have is the ISO file.
I can open up the ISO image fine, and I'm staring at the .exe installation file, but naturally it won't run (not even in wine).
Any ideas for a tech newbie?

[Nathan Sweeney]

I've been doing a bit of searching about on the forums for this but I can't find any resolution as yet.
Long story short,
I have an Acer laptop which had Vista pre-installed.
When I installed Ubuntu (8.10) I wiped the partition with Vista on it (whoopsie!)
I am now looking to re-install Vista, but all I have is the ISO file.
I can open up the ISO image fine, and I'm staring at the .exe installation file, but naturally it won't run (not even in wine).
Any ideas for a tech newbie?

<nb>This is of questionable legality!</nb>

You would have to burn the .iso file (a disc image) using an image burning program. You can't just copy the file to a cd/dvd or open it. On ubuntu, Applications -> Sound & Video -> Brasero will do this (Click on burn image).

Doesn't your acer come with a restore disc or a restore partition you can boot into? If you install a clean version of vista, you will probably have to hunt down drivers for a lot of your components.

[Alexpants]

The file is several gigs, hence why I didn't mount it!
I know I'll have to hunt around for drivers (D'oh!) but I guess I'll have to take it as punishment.
As I said in my original post, I accidentally wiped the partition with Vista on it :(
I've got the ISO, Got my official product key, but can't get the beggar to run for love nor money! I've even tried running it in Virtual Box but it's telling me my CPU isn't compatible with x64 mode (not true!).

[Mark Phelps]

Unless the ISO file is an ACER OEM image, a more serious problem will be that after installation, you may not be able to activate it. An OEM version is likely to accept the product ID printed on your ACER box; a retail version probably will not.