Windows XP imaging and updating

[Brady]

Good Day! I need some help from other XP forum members. I run a very
dynamic lab with several different Dell machines. I am constantly
reimaging these machines and several of them run temporary (Microsoft
approved 30 day licenses) and other have full DELL OEM keys. This setup

has worked well for me in the past, however recent changes somehow
related to updates and/or WGA have seriously wrecked my systems.


I have several Dell machines with OEM keys that all run the exact same
hardware set. I have been using images successfully with them (Both SP1
and SP2 images).
According to my current company policies I update these machines every
2-3 months. During my most recent attempt to apply Windows updates (SP2

box) I came across the WGA and appx. 17 other updates. I ran the WGA
which successfully validated my key and applied these 17 updates.
However, when I actually create the image and attempt to install the
image onto a different machine I get a 'Windows must be activated
before logging onto this machine' error. I obviously cannot activate an

OEM key so at that point I am dead in the water. Each of my machines
have a valid Windows XP key on them and I have been able to validate
those successfully, but that doesn't help for constant re-imaging.


Obviously, being that I run a dynamic lab environment the current
situation is not working for me. Because the activation by internet
feature is
reset every 120 days there is no way I can activate each of these keys
because they are getting reimaged too often. In addition to that it is
not practical to create an image of every single machine in the lab (In

the hundreds).


I guess my questions are as follows:


1. Why am I being asked to activate OEM keys on the same hardware???


2. Why are the OEM keys not showing as valid??


3. Which updates do I have to avoid installing in order to circumvent
this problem (I have found the ones that seem to 'break' the system on
SP1, but have not been able to pin down the SP2 updates yet)?


4. Is there another way to image these machines (using sysprep or
another MS tool) that would prevent this from happening so I can
continue to work as I have in the past with OEM keys?


5. Would the solution be to simply move to temporary license on all
machines rather than use the OEM keys? (-- I can answer my own question
here, because I just tried this and SP2 will not accept my temporary
key on these OEM boxes --)


Any help or feedback on this issue would be greatly appreciated.


I know my circumstances are somewhat unique, but I work in a testing
environment with several hundred machines.
We run multiple OS types and versions and a volume license from MS is
impracticle and much too costly to be a feasible solution to this
issue.


Again thank you in advance for any help or suggestions.

 

[Brady]

In regards to your suggestion Buck, I know about that little 'work
around' (which by the way only works on SP2, SP1 has a different 'work
around') to the validation, but that is not where my problem lies. I
can use the WGA and authenticate my OEM keys just fine. However, during
the last few MS updates something has changed in regards to activation
that is causing the image I take from one machine (regardless of
whether it's validated by WGA or not) to suddenly not function on other
machines. I even went so far as to try pulling the same image I created
of a machine down to the same box about five minutes after creating the
image and it still wanted me to activate with MS before logging into
Windows. So I'm confused to as what MS has done to disallow or change
OEM keys and force users to input the ones attached to their boxes.

In regards to your suggestion Carey I have a valid key for each one of
my boxes that came installed on the machines. The select few I do not
have valid keys for are covered by a temporary key that I have
purchased for use through MS (Good for 30 days). The volume license
agreement doesn't make sense at this point because it has worked for
the last several years just fine with the OEM key. The burning question
is what has changed, or which update has change the way that this
works. I have been in the process of testing individual updates, but
with 17 different updates to download and test individually it's become
a painstaking process.

I appreciate both of your answers and time, however I'm looking for
more specific information to as what MS is doing behind the scenes that
is essentially deactivating my OEM keys on my images.

Any other ideas? Anyone?

Thanks again in advance...