G
Gordon Fecyk
First off, thanks to Darrell Gorter for a lot of badly needed information.
The deployment kit I put together is finished. The only thing I got stuck
on, re: custom default user profiles[1], was with Windows Journal Viewer. I
just decided to omit Journal Viewer from my preinstall kit. My customers
can add that back if they want.
Anyway, I put the kit together while not activating my working copy of XP
Home Edition. I -reseal'd it but in all this time hadn't activated it. I
also have a non-resealed image just in case, with some grace time left.
I wanted to know if activating my non-resealed installation of XP will let
me continue to work with it and -reseal it, and still have it ask for a new
product key and provide thirty days of activation grace time. The docs
didn't look clear on this, though they did talk about activating XP at the
factory and such.
[1] Customizing the default profile without accidentally personalizing is is
tricky, that much is certain, but not difficult. I compared the original
default profile to the customized one and hacked out all personalizations,
and also avoided running certain applications while customizing. I also had
to restore the original security ACLs (which were just inherited from
Documents and Settings).
The deployment kit I put together is finished. The only thing I got stuck
on, re: custom default user profiles[1], was with Windows Journal Viewer. I
just decided to omit Journal Viewer from my preinstall kit. My customers
can add that back if they want.
Anyway, I put the kit together while not activating my working copy of XP
Home Edition. I -reseal'd it but in all this time hadn't activated it. I
also have a non-resealed image just in case, with some grace time left.
I wanted to know if activating my non-resealed installation of XP will let
me continue to work with it and -reseal it, and still have it ask for a new
product key and provide thirty days of activation grace time. The docs
didn't look clear on this, though they did talk about activating XP at the
factory and such.
[1] Customizing the default profile without accidentally personalizing is is
tricky, that much is certain, but not difficult. I compared the original
default profile to the customized one and hacked out all personalizations,
and also avoided running certain applications while customizing. I also had
to restore the original security ACLs (which were just inherited from
Documents and Settings).