Deactivation of WinVista licence?

Hi,

This is rather long ....

I bought a new custom build computer last August which came pre-installed with Windows Vista Business 64 bit and should have come with an upgrade voucher for Windows 7. I emailed the company the day after the computer arrived to say that I couldn't find any upgrade voucher for Windows 7. They said it was in the original WinVista DVD case (it wasn't), then they said it would be sent to me in the mail (it failed to arrive).

So I waited till after the formal release of Windows 7 and still the voucher didn't arrive. I nagged them again in December and again this month. Now they are saying that, since I can't find the voucher (!!!), the only option is for me to return the computer to them (40 mile sea journey and 300 mile road journey). They will then deactivate the existing Windows Vista Business license, install a new copy of Windows Vista Ultimate and sent it back to me with the upgrade voucher.

I have a couple of questions here:

Firstly, are the upgrade vouchers somehow 'locked into' the original Windows Vista license so it's one license/one upgrade voucher which cannot be used for any other system? This is what they are telling me. I asked them to just send me a Windows 7 disk/license and I would deal with installing it but they say they can't do that. My existing Vista has to be deactivated for some reason.

Secondly, I've got three hard drives on this computer so I'm planning to install Windows 7 on an empty drive and dual boot with the existing Vista. They tried to tell me that I couldn't dual boot Vista and Win7 which sounds very suspicious.

Thirdly, they have told me that the deadline for doing the work on my computer is today, January 19th, because I won't be able to send for the upgrade voucher after that. I understood that the expiry date for the vouchers was February 28th 2010.

Fourthly, they have told me that they will deactivate the existing WinVista license from my computer and use it for someone else. Can they do this? I still have the full disk and box with printed booklet and holographic seal/license and this was activated last August when I received the computer.

Needless to say, my computer is securely packed in its original box/packaging, covered with Fragile-With Care labels and the A4 RMA document secured firmly to the box. It's waiting to be collected and shipped back to them - all shipping in both directions at their expense, already agreed. But with the boat not sailing until this evening, there's no way it will be on their premises today

It took me all weekend to remove sensitive business and personal data from this computer, remove programs and license details, password-protect all the profiles (there are five) and get it ready to send back to them. It's also going to be very inconvenient to be without this computer. It's also taken me time to resurrect our old office computer, transfer files and data across so we can use it while the new one is away.

If they are going to deactivate the WinVista license, will they need to access the operating system? Obviously the COA is stuck to the computer case so they have that information - can they do it using that?

I get the feeling that this company seems to be doing everything it can to avoid providing me with the Win7 upgrade voucher because it keeps coming up with various 'caveats' to discourage me from pursuing this

Can anyone give me some advice?

Many thanks,

Topaz