Installing XP on wiped machine

[Guest]

on a similiar note

our new HP pcs all moan about it being a non genuine copy of xp if the network cable is unplugged ,

does that mean they are constantly talking to MS

[GeeDee]

1: You can't use VLK media unless you are a Microsoft volume licensing customer BUT you can use VLK media on OEM licensed boxes, providing you are a volume license customer. I.E. You don't have to re-buy a volume license for an OEM licensed box to use the volume media, providing you have volume licenses for other (presumabely none OEM /retail licensed boxes).

 

2: The Dell (and most other OEM) recovery / Windows install CDs use what's called OEM pre-activation. The Dell XP CD will check for a flag in the machines BIOS and if it finds it, won't ask for activation. Same applies for the XP disks of other OEMs who take part in pre-activation. If you use the Dell CD in a none-Dell PC, it wont find the flag it's looking for aks will ask for activation.

 

3: You can't activate using the OEM COA sticker numbers over the internet. Microsoft switched that off some time ago. You CAN activate the sticker number via a phone activation, just not online. Apparently too many people were stealing COA sticker numbers and using them on other machines or something (the COA numbers were never getting used for most OEM boxes, as they are all pre-activated either using pre-activation or as part of the factory install).

 

Hope that helps.

[SimpleSi]

The Dell XP CD will check for a flag in the machines BIOS and if it finds it, won't ask for activation.

 

Ah - all is explained

 

Thanks for the info

 

regards

 

Simon

[GeeDee]

No worries. If you want to image OEM pre-activated machines under an OEM license or want to know more; this page might be useful to you.

[maniac]

1: You can't use VLK media unless you are a Microsoft volume licensing customer BUT you can use VLK media on OEM licensed boxes, providing you are a volume license customer. I.E. You don't have to re-buy a volume license for an OEM licensed box to use the volume media, providing you have volume licenses for other (presumabely none OEM /retail licensed boxes).

 

Please correct me if I'm wrong on the point I'm about to make.

 

As I understand it if these machines were for use on the premises that poseses the volume license, then they would have to be added onto the agreement at the next renewal, as volume licensing dictates a licence must be purchased on the volume license agreement for EVERY machine in use on the premises, regardless of whether it has an OEM or other license for it already.

 

I believe I'm right on that point, please please correct me if I'm wrong as I could save my school a shed load of cash, as at the moment most of our desktops have an OEM license, but we are paying for a volume license covering all our machines.

 

Cheers,

 

Mike.

[GeeDee]

iirc (and tbh, i'd rather not be corrected on this - could be pricy! ) that's not the way it works for education. That is correct for some of the MS Volume licensing schemes, but under the education licensing system you don't need to re-license a box that's already licensed with the same product.

 

i.e. A box with an OEM XP Pro license, you should be fine to run XP Pro on as is and in addition; IF you volume license other machines in your school you can also use the volume install media on your OEM licensed boxes (as in the doc I linked to a couple of posts ago).

 

Where the waters are muddied a bit (and what the software licensing houses don't always make very clear) is that the education Windows license prices are actually for upgrades only, so you would need another license (OEM or retail) in order to be able to 'upgrade' to XP under education pricing per box. So if you had machines with Win98 OEM stickers, or XP Home OEM stickers, you could buy education XP Pro licenses on the ~£32 pricing, use the volume media and as a bonus, use the volume media on your XP Pro OEM licensed boxes too. What you couldn't do is build your own machines, or buy machines with no OS license, buy the ~£32 education XP Pro license and run XP Pro. You need something to upgrade from (although Win95 does qualify - keep those old licenses )

 

That's always been my understanding anyhow. Plus, our old admin network which was a Hampshire CC managed jobbie were all OEM licensed but installed with volume media and no volume licenses were ever purchased. I always thought it rather odd that any VL scheme would require re-buying licenses you'd already paid for via the OEM anyway. :/

[maniac]

Around 80% of our machines have an XP-pro OEM sticker on them, so if the above is correct, then in theory I could save the school around 80% on its windows XP licensing.

 

The other issue here I've just thought of is Client Access Licenses for the servers. As I understand it, a CAL is included with the XP-pro license under a volume agreement, where as using the XP pro OEM license would mean you'd have to purchase seperate Client Access Licenses to allow these machines to use your servers.

 

Infact thinking through this, this may well be the reason we have all our machines covered by the volume license agreement. Going to make some phonecalls monday to clarify this me thinks.

 

Mike

[john]

You need to get seperate CALs for Server 2003, you don't get them bundled with XP Pro OEM or XP Pro Upg. they are a seperate item, cost around £3 each.

 

If you run XP Pro on your machines and 80% of them have XP Pro OEM stickers on them then you only need to licence from microsoft 20% XP Pro Upgrades (assuming your other 20% have a COA from antoher version of Windows?) but you need 100% Server Cals from Microsoft. You may have them all under licnece as you can buy Software Assurance for new machines that have OEM windows on them.