Sysprep, Ghost & Windows XP activation

[Eddie]

I am trying to clone to 20 Dell GX270 PCs using Ghost 7.5.

1) When I build the 1st one, I use the WXP Pro OEM install.

2) I suck the image to the server using Sysprep & Ghost, with our Volume
Licensing product key.

3) When loaded back to the clients this fails on the license key.

4) I return to step 2 & use an OEM product key.

5) The deployment works! BUT each machine is asking for activation. If I
activate more than 1 of these then surely activation will fail because they
all have the same OEM product key, not their individual ones & not the
volume licensing one.

7) If I were to return to step 1) & build from my volume license media the
installation of the 1st machine will fail because the VL media is only an
upgrade.

8) If I were to exclude the product key from the sysprep.inf file I could
enter each individual machine's OEM key - BUT I will have to do this every
time I re-clone a machine which I reckon is going to be a regular event.

Is there a utility out there that will allow me to substitute the VL product
key in place of the OEM license key thus auto activating the installations?

Any other ideas on how to get around this?

I have read much in this newsgroup referring to various TechNet documents
but I have yet to find anything that solves the problem rather than
acknowledging it exists.

Many thanks
Eddie Cooper

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[Eddie]

The sysprep I am using is from the XP cd, deploy.cab.

I have fixed my problem by installing W2k Pro, then using the volume license
media for XP Pro. Activation is still solid after the sysprep & clone
process.

Huge pain in the arse tho. Having to download from Dell all of the drivers
for the GX270 to install them all individually as PnP has not worked for
them.

Rhetorical Q: Why does Dell give a list of 6 different video drivers for a
GX270 with a specific service tag? Surely they should show only the drivers
relevant to that service tag rather than drivers that have been used for the
GX270.

Anyways, XP is running fine now I have all of the correct drivers.

Surely if you skip the activation then you will come unstuck in 4 weeks...??

Eddie

Hi Eddie...

I am trying to clone to compaq evo D510 PC using Ghost
7.0. I hv the same problem like you have. Where did you
get sysprep.exe file? I copied sysprep.exe file from
windows XP service pack 1 cd that came along with my pc.
Well..we skip the step of entering activation code and it
worked but after that the speed of the process becoming
very slow..for example, if I want to run windows explore,
it take very long to open it. Do you have this issue?