Vista to XP downgrade

[denon101]

We have 33 machines here that we bought from dell in the summer. They are vista business with the XP downgrade enabled from the factory. I am now in a position to set up an image for them. But we do not have a XP volume licence CD. We use the OEM keys. But on these dells they are Vista business keys. Obviously they won't work on a syspreped XP image. What can I do?

[powdarrmonkey]

Ask Dell for an appropriate XP key so that you can re-install the OS. Don't mention sysprep to them unless you have to.

[Quackers]

You can also phone Microsoft and they will convert you a Vista Business key into a XP Key.

Can you not order 1 CD and 1 Upgrade licence from somebody like ramesys, then you can use Volume Licence?

[SimpleSi]

Since they are identical hardware - just simply one up and clone it to the others and just use NewSID to change their name afterwards.

Its not the way the big boys and girls normally do things but it will work just fine

regards

Simon

[sted]

if youren using a dell oem xp image you SHOULD be able to use the -activated command on sysprep and with anyluck the pcs will remember activation details. I know this works via ghost with fujitsu siemens pcs but not tried with dells

[denon101]

Thanks for the info guys. Rang Microsoft yesterday afternoon and once I have collected all of the Vista key together I will ring them again and go through the process of converting them to XP keys.

Ta

[Quackers]

Thanks for the info guys. Rang Microsoft yesterday afternoon and once I have collected all of the Vista key together I will ring them again and go through the process of converting them to XP keys.

Ta

Did they Beg you to not put XP on and use there Glorious Windows Vista?

[denon101]

Erm... Nope. The helpful woman in india was quite useful. Once we got past the language difficulties. Me being a Geordie and her being indian!!