windows installation has encountered an error and needs to be rest

Greetings,

We work at a university, and we have obtained a license key for Vista
Business. When installing, I enter the product key when prompted and get the
error: windows installation has encountered an error and needs to be
restarted. We bypass it, Vista installs, we get online and activate it with
the same product key, and everything works fine.

Trying to setup the autounattend.xml file, and keep having the same problem
- it bombs at where the product key needs to be entered. Granted, I can
probably skip this in the xml file, but I want this to be as complete as
possible for installation on all our workstations.

I found this post tha said something where the guy had the worng install for
his version of windows, which is why he was getting the error:

"Note also that MSDN Product Keys only work with MSDN versions of Windows. If
you try to plug an MSDN key into setup from a retail disk of Vista, it won't
work. If you are using an MSDN key, you *must* use an MSDN version of
Windows: either on DVD, if you get the physical media in your subscription;
or else download and burn an ISO file from the MSDN site."

Is this possibly my problem? Is there a way around it?

Thanks.