I have an undergraduate degree and master's degree in a related field, in additon to a years experience in both the pharmaceutical industry and the NHS. Both attenuated (weakened) and inactivated vaccines exist. The nasal flu vaccine is attenuated, thus live, but they use a modified strain of flu which is not disease causing and does not replicated well at human body temperature. They mix genetic code from the predicted next predominant strain of flu into the code of the virus, such that the immune system can recognise these codes and destroy the actual virus.
Furthermore, there is no need for a pathogen to be able to be live for it to be detected by immune system as was insinuated by
Rollerball. For example the polio vaccine contains a chemically deactivated form of the virus, the deactivation prevents the generation of a form of the virus that can enter the cells.
In addition, our body can recognise foreign proteins from viruses and bacteria quite effectively without them being part of a live pathogen. Sometimes it does this too well, which is what causes allergies to things like pollen. It should be obvious that pollen is not live.
Some vaccines are even made up of the polysaccharides of the cell wall of some groups of bacteria.
Essentially you're both right and wrong. I've not even gone into whether you can call a virus 'live' or not.