Hofmannm

Thanks for the response guys... I appreciate your advice. If you have installed windows XP onto a Dell machine using their installer CD, you never have to put the key in. Somehow it pulls the key from each machine...i think. Dors anyone know a way to replicate that or know where the code is to cause that to happen? I thought when running sysprep, if you copy the "i386" folder from the CD that all that coding would be pulled over. Sadly enough it was not. Unfortunately we do not currently purchase a VL key windows XP. So ordering machines with XP preinstalled is that way to go. Do anyone have any other suggestions how i should ghost these machines? I am trying to avoid inserting their key in for every machine by hand. [plus automation makes me look good... :-) ] If anyone has other ideas...im up for anything. I thank you all in advance for your assistance. -Mike

Dave, Where you able to solve this problem? I have recently started to image Dell PC's here at work and run into one problem... The key... Do you know how Dell manages to have the serial key automatically entered during the installation of windows XP. Currently you have to activate windows. It's not a big deal until a PC has been imaged around 3 times, then you cant activate and that serial is useless. Sorry to say... we don't have a volume license key, we order our Dells with XP pre installed. We are using sysprep 2.0, for XP and Norton Ghost enterprise 11.0. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.