Do you know how I can activate now? MS refused to give me a downgrade key "because Vista is EOL" when it was never stated I couldn't get a key after EOL.
As far as I know the slui.exe 4 method in Step 2 / Option 2 of Brink's tutorial How to Activate Vista Normally and by Phone Activation still works - at least if you're reinstalling Vista SP2 on a computer that shipped from the factory with that same OS. I know of someone who used this method in Dec 2021 and was able to activate a clean reinstall of Vista SP2 on their old Dell Inspiron 1501.
However, I have no idea if this automated phone method will work for you since you are downgrading from Win 7 SP1 to Vista SP2. I presume the product key number on your COA sticker is for a Win 7 OS, but you said in your original post that "microsoft says OEM licenses have downgrade rights" so hopefully that won't be an issue for you.
Do you know how I can activate now? MS refused to give me a downgrade key "because Vista is EOL" when it was never stated I couldn't get a key after EOL.
If you can't figure out a way to activate your Vista OS and need to go back to Win 7 SP1 see AdvancedSetup's 19-May-2021 tutorial How to Update Windows 7 to the Latest Security Updates in the Malwarebytes forum. That post includes a full set of instructions for patching a clean reinstall of Win 7 back to end of support on 14-Jan-2020. I haven't performed a clean reinstall of Win 7 SP1 in several years so someone else would have to tell you if the step to enable the TLS 1.1 and 1.2 secure connection protocols is a strict requirement before other security and rollup updates can be installed.
I know you said in post # 3 that you prefer Vista over Win 7, but you might want to reconsider your downgrade to Vista SP2 unless you have older software that won't run on Win 7 SP1 in Compatibility Mode. If you haven't used a Vista SP2 machine in recent years post back and let us know. Aside from the fact that support for this OS ended on 11-Apr-2017, there have been quite a few changes to Microsoft policies in recent years (see the MS support article Windows Update SHA-1 Based Endpoints Discontinued for Older Windows Devices about Microsoft's decision to deactivate the Windows Update servers for Win XP and Vista on 03-Aug-2020 for one example) that make using a Vista SP2 machine even more challenging in 2022.
