OEM Locked In Addition To BIOS Locked ?

[mr.roboto.ny]

Had some time to kill and wanted to experiment w/ which CD/key
combos work and don't work, prior to being in a rush to finish a
given repair job. In addition to the BIOS locked/SLP wrinkle, I
also have confirmed something else. In fact, bef I wrote this,
I Googled the newsgroup and refreshed myself on the BIOS lock
issue.

I have a Dell laptop which needs XP, so I copied my
plain-vanilla OEM Home config onto the hdrive, which is
slipstreamed w/ the latest Windows Updates and is prepped for an
unattended install. Nothing unusual there. However, when I
tried to use a DELL XP Home key on the bottom of the laptop, the
key was rejected ! For laffs, I started checking the keys on
the other "hanger queeens" in the shop. No joy.

I believe these keys are grouped by vendor, so that a Dell Home
key will ONLY work w/ a Dell Home disc, a Gateway Pro key will
only work w/ a Gateway Pro disc, etc. Not sure if that's been
covered here, but thought I'd share an observation....MR

 

[Guest]

There may be another factor here, which is that I've found a lot of recent
OEM keys that don't work EVEN with the original i386 folder and the genuine
key. It may be simply that the keys are faulty.

 

[mr.roboto.ny]

There may be another factor here, which is that I've found a lot of recent
OEM keys that don't work EVEN with the original i386 folder and the genuine
key. It may be simply that the keys are faulty.

Ian: We already covered that one last week in the newsgroup.
You're likely correct, in that Dell (and perhaps others)
probably don't provide a \i386 sub-directory w/ an installable
XP, regardless of the OEM key used. This recent observation
suggests that large OEM keys are in a "class" by themselves, the
same way there is a distinct class of keys that only work for
VLK Pro, a distinct class of keys for a given OEM, like Dell,
for their XP Home customers, etc.

Anyway, that's the conclusion that fits the current
circumstances....MR