Windows 7 OEM Media

[Arthur]

so im not supposed to make an image on one (for the sake of argument) compaq 610 laptop using (again for arguments sake) wds and then deploy it to another 12 meh.

According to Microsoft you're not supposed to. They would obviously like you to buy yet more Windows licenses so that you can "upgrade" your OEM licenses to volume licenses. This would make things easier for you though, since you could setup a KMS Server to deal with the activation of your Windows clients.

[sted]

According to Microsoft you're not supposed to. They would obviously like you to buy yet more Windows licenses so that you can "upgrade" your OEM licenses to volume licenses. This would make things easier for you though, since you could setup a KMS Server to deal with the activation of your Windows clients.

well yes but that would mean every pc having 2 windows lics and that is to me a waste of money and as im doing odd pcs to 7 atm kms wouldnt work as iirc kms needs 25 workstations or 5 servers and most win77 pcs ive got in a school is 16 and most schools are single server 2 if i can (basically if old server aint too crap i keep it and use it for x86 printers wsus and other non critical stuff as well as being a 2nd dc and if hdd is big enough a handy place to dump backups to)

[sted]

According to Microsoft you're not supposed to. They would obviously like you to buy yet more Windows licenses so that you can "upgrade" your OEM licenses to volume licenses. This would make things easier for you though, since you could setup a KMS Server to deal with the activation of your Windows clients.

well using the "HP" dvd works activated from install and survives a sysprep and being pulled to wds

[sted]

Just tested with mdt2010 as well and the pc deployed is activated, joined the domain and did all msi deploys so from an xp install ive gone to win7 with all msi's (well it looks like all of them judging by my desktop) all drivers and after the first few mdt screens asking for pcname domain etc the only think ive had to do manually is click windows update to install the 21 updates wsus has for it. Thast one hell of a timesaver all i need is drivers and effectively i have one image to build them all just need to work out how to get mdt to roll rsat out to the pcs and install gpmc and possibly ad users and computers

[Arthur]

^^ That's good to know.

I think the reason Microsoft prohibits the imaging of OEM machines is because OEM licenses are non-transferable between PCs. I agree that having to pay for Windows twice is a bit of a waste of money, but that's just the way it is.

[wigwam]

if your given a Windows 7 Disc depending on the disc it can have either the whole series of windows on or just the one.
normally they have them all on.

They are all in the WIM

You can use the a normal OEM disc on any of the branded unit's and then copy the licence files .xrm-ms and use the their product key and it will activate the units.
if you have a locked DVD then remove the ei.cfg file and it will allow you to install any of the OS.

[nephilim]

Both of the above being completely illegal! haha

[wigwam]

well it wont activate unless the bios has the SLP string.
so wouldnt work if it was for another brand of unit