It was a valid serial number, he has the VUE box and everythihg, he gave me his copy after he took it off his computer. So I could update it off their sight and the thing was it still crashes, it did the same thing while on his computer, so he didn't want it anymore so he let me borrow it to see if it was stable on my system. It wasn't. So I'm not gonna buy it now and I'm giving it back to him.