OMG tell me it isnt true - Windows XP Activation

[Mark]

My company has 142 computers which were purchased with OEM
Windows XP Professional. I figured the easiest way to
install SP2 would be just to create an image and duplicate
it across the network, utilizing individual product keys
for each computer (the ones that are on the sticker)

I was so wrong. Apparently on each computer Windows XP
has been installed too many times, and now it is required
to talk with the licensing department via telephone. Now
I am told there is no easy way of doing this. It is
impossible to transform my OEM licenses into Volume
licensing and that it is necessary for me to activate each
computer manually via telephone.

Now if each activation takes 5 minutes this comes out to
around 11.5 hours of telephone time. This is
unacceptable. There has to be another way!

 

[Al Dykes]

My company has 142 computers which were purchased with OEM
Windows XP Professional. I figured the easiest way to
install SP2 would be just to create an image and duplicate
it across the network, utilizing individual product keys
for each computer (the ones that are on the sticker)

I was so wrong. Apparently on each computer Windows XP
has been installed too many times, and now it is required
to talk with the licensing department via telephone. Now
I am told there is no easy way of doing this. It is
impossible to transform my OEM licenses into Volume
licensing and that it is necessary for me to activate each
computer manually via telephone.

Now if each activation takes 5 minutes this comes out to
around 11.5 hours of telephone time. This is
unacceptable. There has to be another way!

This has gotta be a troll.

 

[Guest]

What is a troll?

This has gotta be a troll.

 

[RA]

I don't have anything to help you with at this point, but the next time you
buy new pcs, you should check into using volume licensing.
Also, consider using Outlook Express instead of the web interface to
interact with this newsgroup. There seems to be an increasing number of
people around here who think that anyone who uses the web interface is a
troll.

 

[Al Dykes]

Isn't there some way to get each machine to "activate later" (for up
to 30 days) ? This would give you a month to activate all your
machines.

You didn't do your bottom line a favor by not getting some advice
from someone that know MS licensing and administration. You lost
an oportunity to do things right by not using volume licensing.

 

[Guest]

Yes, of course I can do the activate later, but I still need to spend the
time, regardless. And hindsight is a great thing when it comes to this
issue, however I trusted my vendor to sell me the correct product.

I don't think that MS makes it obvious enough about the difficulties
regarding activation. I was under the assumption that as long as the
hardware remains the same, I could activate via Internet as many times as I
wanted. I am learning a lot here today, in fact many of the people I spoke
with on the phone from Microsoft did not know of all these issues.

Here is another one, I have 142 seperate CD's for XP OEM. Did you know that
each product key is associated with a particular CD? I cannot use 1 CD for
all computers. Even though they are the same OEM Windows XP SP1 Included CD.


I completely understand MS's point of view when it comes to activation,
however I think they could do a bit more to explain potential problems, with
regards to OEM CD's. I don't wish to transfer the license to another PC, I
don't wish to use 1 product key on 2 machines, I wish to use the same license
on the same PC, and I am unable to do so in a reasonable way.

So now, my choices are purchase 2nd licenses for all computers, or simply
crack the activation procedure on all machines to prevent it from expiring in
30 days. I am trying to be as legit as possible, but I don't forsee me
forking over another $170 per license for this issue. Or spending a total of
11 hours on the telephone every time I would like to reimage my network.

Al, I am not trying to be a "troll", I believe I hold a valid argument, and
was simply hoping there would be another way to accomplish something
seemingly so simple

 

[CS]

My company has 142 computers which were purchased with OEM
Windows XP Professional. I figured the easiest way to
install SP2 would be just to create an image and duplicate
it across the network, utilizing individual product keys
for each computer (the ones that are on the sticker)

I was so wrong. Apparently on each computer Windows XP
has been installed too many times, and now it is required
to talk with the licensing department via telephone. Now
I am told there is no easy way of doing this. It is
impossible to transform my OEM licenses into Volume
licensing and that it is necessary for me to activate each
computer manually via telephone.

Now if each activation takes 5 minutes this comes out to
around 11.5 hours of telephone time. This is
unacceptable. There has to be another way!

Your IT person or whoever made the decision to purchase 142 OEM copies
of XP Pro instead of a volume license, should be fired. If that was
you, good luck on your next job.....

Too late to do anything about it now. Suck it up!

 

[Guest]

Thank you for the wise comments, I have found a solution.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/wpadepl.mspx
offers a wealth of information on this. Since I already have all PID's and
Key's in a spreadsheet, I will simply use a generic key to install, and then
write a script which pulls the correct information from the spreadsheet to
change the product key according to the PID on each computer, It will
require me to at least go to each computer once and type a number for each
computer at the batch script prompt however I can do that in 10 minutes as
opposed to the 11 hours it would take me on the telephone. End result:
Every machine activated with it's own code.

Mr. CS I am sure I will do fine, at this job and my next one. You will
learn in life that not everything is black or white. Sometimes you need to
actually consider some creative ideas in order to come up with a solution.
This is a quality you obviously lack.

Cheers

 

[RA]

Thanks for posting your solution.

Thank you for the wise comments, I have found a solution.
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/deploy/wpadepl.mspx
offers a wealth of information on this. Since I already have all PID's and
Key's in a spreadsheet, I will simply use a generic key to install, and then
write a script which pulls the correct information from the spreadsheet to
change the product key according to the PID on each computer, It will
require me to at least go to each computer once and type a number for each
computer at the batch script prompt however I can do that in 10 minutes as
opposed to the 11 hours it would take me on the telephone. End result:
Every machine activated with it's own code.

Mr. CS I am sure I will do fine, at this job and my next one. You will
learn in life that not everything is black or white. Sometimes you need to
actually consider some creative ideas in order to come up with a solution.
This is a quality you obviously lack.

Cheers

 

[HOMER]

What a limited, narrow-minded, ignorant point of view. Perhaps the company
or department started out small, and added computers from a vendor as
needed. Over time, having over 100 individual, OEM licenses could happen.
And, if so, a solution to this problem would be needed.

Jeez, if you can't help with the original problem, just shut your trap.

 

[CS]

What a limited, narrow-minded, ignorant point of view. Perhaps the company
or department started out small, and added computers from a vendor as
needed. Over time, having over 100 individual, OEM licenses could happen.
And, if so, a solution to this problem would be needed.

Jeez, if you can't help with the original problem, just shut your trap.

The list of the unemployed grows.......

You idiot, can't you see that Mark is a Troll. No, I guess you
can't.

 

[not me]

You idiot, can't you see that Mark is a Troll. No, I guess you
can't.
.

And we all know what CS means.

 

[lew]

And we all know what CS means.

yup, Chicken Shit says that ms cannot do wrong; it is the user who
messes up & should spend more money buying ms products.

 

[Al Smith]

I was so wrong. Apparently on each computer Windows XP

has been installed too many times, and now it is required
to talk with the licensing department via telephone. Now
I am told there is no easy way of doing this. It is
impossible to transform my OEM licenses into Volume
licensing and that it is necessary for me to activate each
computer manually via telephone.

I feel your pain, but ... (excuse me) BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAH! The
wonders of Product Activation. Let's the the MS lapdogs in this
group justify this one.

 

[Guest]

CS, Now now...... Thank you again, for answering. This will be my last
posting on this thread as to not seem so "trollish" While I am certainly not
so hip as you in spotting trolls, as a matter of fact I never even heard of a
troll before. I had to google it to even find out what it was!

This was a valid problem that I encountered, and I am sure that others have
and will run into this as well. Whether it was 140 computers or 3 computers,
it's always nice to be able to image. It seems that you as well do not fully
understand OEM discs with Windows XP. You stated in a post I found while
doing research that the OEM CD is a worthless piece of plastic, however I can
assure you that is not true. Here is the posting

http://groups.google.com/[email protected]&rnum=14

You cannot simply "borrow" another CD.

I thought this would work, however I find out quickly that it tells me I
have a bad product key. For example, you cannot do the following:

Install Windows XP Professional on Computer A with Product Key A using CD A
and.....
Install Windows XP Professional on Computer B with Product Key B using CD A

I hope that is clear, I did not believe it at first, however it was
confirmed by MS. Apparently the setupp.ini on the CD is different on each
OEM CD. There is a part in this setupp.ini file (THE PID VALUE) that tells
the setup which Product Key will work with it. And before you argue that
they are different versions of XP, both Product Keys are for Windows XP
Professional OEM w/ SP1 1-2 Processor. This WAS confirmed by Microsoft and
my vendor via telephone. Their solution was to keep all 142 discs and label
each one with the computer name. Odd doesnt it seem? Try it out for
yourself if you don't believe me. I have done XP installations thousands of
times, and never realized this either.

It no longer works like such software as Symantec, where you can simply
purchase a media pack and all will be well again with your old product key.

Cheers