Installing XP on wiped machine

[SimpleSi]

I've recently taken delivery of some 2nd hand Dell desktops from 1st Technologies.

 

They have been completely wiped but come with a Windows XP Pro sticker on the side but with no installation media.

 

Can you just install XP Pro from another manufacturers CD and then just activate it OK?

 

Or will I have to get hold of a volume licence CD and key from our county licence supplier?

 

Help!!!

 

regards

 

Simon

[Ric_]

The COA sticker on the case has a valid OEM product key - this should be usable with any OEM media. The alternative is to use a volume license disc and VLK.

[_Bat_]

You are one step ahead of me Simon. Hoping to have my desktops from 1st tech soon. Glad you asked though as i'd probably have wondered the same thing.

[contink]

The only potential problem you're likely to have is if the OEM disk you plan to use is different in some significant way from the one that the key matches.. eg: SP1 key with SP2 disk won't work..

 

Not sure about the OEM manufacturer side of things if there's any differences there but if nothing else you can always install using a key of your own that suits your disk and then reset the key when it's all happy later using one of the various tools I understand are out there for the purpose.

[SimpleSi]

@ric

Ta -I'll give it a go with a DELL LfT CD and see what happens

 

regards

 

Simon

[CheeseDog]

Had an issue with using a Compaq CD on an NEC laptop but this may have been a SP issue as the NEC came with 1a and the Compaq didn't

[tosca925]

I've tried using othe OEM disc on differnet Manufacturers and not had much luck.

 

I've tried Acer, Compaq, Toshiba, Evesham and Dell OEM discs in each other without much success.

[chrbb]

When you buy the computers from Ist tech are you paying for the license? If not wouldn't you have to buy a new xp lic?

[_Bat_]

When you buy the computers from Ist tech are you paying for the license? If not wouldn't you have to buy a new xp lic?

 

Yes, the machines come with an XP Pro COA, which is partly what makes them such a good deal. They just don't come with any operating system pre-installed.

[Geoff]

OEM licenses 'belong' to the PC and stay with it until death.

[Ric_]

The issue is with the way OEMs alter the OS installation disc to add in specific drivers and the like. I believe that all DELL ones are the same though (whether it be from a desktop or laptop).

[_Bat_]

OEM licenses 'belong' to the PC and stay with it until death.

 

Which, in a school, probably won't be that long away.

 

I watched a class pack up in the ICT Suite last week and one of the pupils was asked to shut down all the computers (no idea why the individual pupils can't do it) so he went around and turned them all off at the sockets (without shutting them down first)!! Is it any wonder I have three computers in there with broken hard drives?

 

Sorry for taking this off topic... just felt like ranting.

[Ric_]

I watched a class pack up in the ICT Suite last week and one of the pupils was asked to shut down all the computers (no idea why the individual pupils can't do it) so he went around and turned them all off at the sockets (without shutting them down first)!! Is it any wonder I have three computers in there with broken hard drives?

 

Ah, the advantages of solid-state thin client devices

[ChrisH]

@ Simon just get hold of the VLK CD and the serial from that centre you love so much. Saves alot of hassle as long as your machines are licenced for XP.

[john]

HP OEM CDs only work on HP machines and they are fussy at times on them. I just use a Volume Disk on them all, I own the XP licences so whats the issue.

 

As for the SP1 COA and media issue, so long as you are upgrading IE the Disk is an SP2 OEM disk it will work fine with an original XP COA. My machine at home as an original XP COA and I now use an XP Pro SP2 media disk on it

[tarquel]

Ooooh my fave.... MS licensing :D

 

Shame i need to go to sleep.

 

The short of it is:

 

Technically u cant use the VLM unless u have VLK licenses for those machines SimpleSi - notice I do say "technically". I had a nice chat to MS about a while back, and they say that even tho they are both XP Pro [OEM & Volume], they are both different licenses etc etc.

 

Yes, thats the short of it lol

 

Haven't read all the posts as bed is calling, but like John says, HP OEM disks arent "standard" OEM disks generally, and I imagine that goes for all Royalty OEM [i.e. HP, Toshiba, Dell, etc etc] media - even if it looks like a normal, standard XP OEM CD.

 

You can quite legally obtain a media copy of a un-modified standard OEM CD - as of course, you have the license for it [but you cannot public distribute via the web though i.e. publicly viewable link on a forum]. You cannot obtain/use and/or distribute a modified XP media CD in any way [unless you are a royalty OEM].

 

Phew - think thats about right for now...

 

Good night folks

 

Nath.

[_Bat_]

Just out of curiosity, how did you go about doing this in the end?

 

I have my 1st tech machines now, but of course am now going through the same dilemma. Spoke to 1st tech briefly about it and I think they are going to see if they have any CDs that came with the PCs, but I was ideally hoping to get an image for these computers pretty soonish.

 

Just tried an OEM CD I had lying around from somewhere, but of course it failed to activate, just like I thought it would.

 

I THINK I have a VLM CD at home somewhere... even if I'm not allowed to use that, I don't think microsoft would be offended if I did as we have XP Pro licenses for each computer.

[_Bat_]

Okay, lets say for instance, I phoned M$ and got this machine activated (they are usually pretty good at doing it without too much explanation). Then I ghosted it and made an image. Would the image then work on all the others? Not had too much experience with XP activation in batch before.

[andyrodger50]

Are you not using the corporate edition of windows xp pro which doesnt require activation?

[_Bat_]

I do actually have a XP corp CD somewhere, just not on me now and I was hoping to get this image half done by the end of today. I just don't want to make the image, sysprep it and put it onto the other computers only to realise that it doesn't work due to activation.

[andyrodger50]

ahh OK, well if you image all of the machines you will have to activate them all individually, even if you activate the machine before creating the master image.

[_Bat_]

You sure? I take it the activation relates to the SSIDs or something then? I cannot see how else each computer with the image installed on it would actually know it wasn't the original machine. :s

[andyrodger50]

Its dependant on the serial numbers of the hardware inside the machine. it will allow you to change a minor component such as a hard drive, but if you change the motherboard you have to reactivate the machine. hence why you will need to reactivate each imaged machine.

 

Its a bit of a pain in the arse tbh.

[SimpleSi]

@James

I don't think it needed activating - I can't remember it doing so - I just used a Dell Laptop CD and they were Dell desktops 8O

 

@andy

I've never ever had to re-activate a cloned machine. I've had DELLS, HPs, VIGLENS, ACERS and Fujitsu-Siemens and every time I've cloned the same manufacturers machine - they've never needed activation

 

regards

 

Simon

[_Bat_]

@andy

I've never ever had to re-activate a cloned machine. I've had DELLS, HPs, VIGLENS, ACERS and Fujitsu-Siemens and every time I've cloned the same manufacturers machine - they've never needed activation

 

regards

 

Simon

 

This is interesting how it appears to work for some people, but not for others :?. I'm tempted not to try it and e-mail MS for their advice instead, but I'm scared of their waiting times. Last time I e-mailed MS it took over a month to reply. Phoning them is not an option because I want to include all the license keys I have in the e-mail.

 

I guess I could just sysprep and ghost a clean windows install as a test.