Need advice

The latter part of December has been slow work wise and I've spent a lot of time between my wife's MacBook Pro (Mac OS X 10.5.8; 2.53 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB 1067 MHz DDR3), a new AV Receiver and Sonos Controller and an old Sony Vaio laptop with a Win 7 OS install that keeps complaining about the version not being genuine. I went online to check out the prices of the official version and realized that it would set me back around $200. I was ready to go online and get it but ran it by my wife first (who's the one that has been complaining about the genuine pop-ups). She balked at the price and seemed content to live with this. Now, let me point out that we're not a household of crooks. We have several PCs with legitimate versions of Windows, it's just that my wife seems to use the Vaio for Windows related tasks/software and this is the only one we had that came with Vista, which we couldn't wait to get off of.

So, to my question....

1. I could get a company Windows image to run on the Mac and wanted to know if this is an adequate substitute for running Windows, short of getting a new (refurbished laptop) or a purchased version of Windows.

Thanks,
Mentorb

Model Name: MacBook Pro
Model Identifier: MacBookPro5,1
Processor Name: Intel Core 2 Duo
Processor Speed: 2.53 GHz
Number Of Processors: 1
Total Number Of Cores: 2
L2 Cache: 6 MB
Memory: 4 GB
Bus Speed: 1.07 GHz
Boot ROM Version: MBP51.007E.B05
SMC Version (system): 1.33f8

It might. Sometimes they work, and sometimes they don't. Probably worth a try, however, before shelling out for a new version. Note that the OEM System Builder versions are cheaper than full retail versions, typically around 100 for Win7 Home Premium.

You can also try to install the company image using a virtual machine first - your call

Cheers