WinXP, Ghost, Licensing, OEM's, and more

[Matt]

Greets -

I'm wondering if I can do the following legally and physically to make life
easier

I work for a small shop that does home PC repair. We get a lot of machines
in for repair, and some need rebuilds. The delimma is when a customer needs
a PC rebuilt, owns a legal license (sticker on outside of case) but either
can't find/doesn't have their restore CDs, which happens a LOT. Since I
have much experience w/ Ghost and sysprep (in the corporate world) I'd like
to make some kind of ghost image that will prompt for their serial on boot,
which I know can be done. What I run into is, certain builds don't accept
certain serial numbers. For example, if I use a general OEM CD to build,
and put in, say a Gateway serial off their PC, it gets rejected. I have to
hope that they can find their restore CDs usually. Basically I'm looking
to cut down turnaround time for the customers, while still doing this all
right and legal.

What I need to know is:
a> Can I do what I'd like to do legally? The serial numbers would be the
ones already owned by that customer who needs the PC rebuilt. So to my
mind, this should be all legal but if anyone knows any reason why it
wouldn't be, please tell me and I'll be happy to cease looking into it.

b> Can I make a ghost image that would work across multple OEMs, or will I
just need to make and sysprep an image for each OEM, i.e. a WinXP for
Gateway, WinXP for Dell, WinXP for HP (if it's trashed on the HD stored
version), etc. I don't know enough about how the serials are separated to
know if it's by OEM, or by some kind of software generation release. Or
would this even work?

c> Same questions for other OS's.. Windows ME is still prevalent around
here, as is Win98 first and second edition.. as well as a scattered W95
machine here and there. Granted W95 and 98, and possibly ME may not be able
to be prepped how I like, but XP is the going foward

d> Anything I'm missing here?

I appreciate any ideas and info that anyone has!

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Phil]

The ghost image would only work on the hardware that is was ghosted from. If
the hardware in the customers computer is different from what's on the ghost
then it won't work. When reformating while repairing I always have the
customer give me the recovery cd, or they buy a copy of xp if they lost it.
If they have no recovery cd or don't want to use it and they have an oem or
retail real xp cd key, then I use my cd and their key.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

a) A computer manufacturer's Windows XP license (Product Key)
will only work with the computer manufacturer's restore method.
You cannot use any other Windows XP CD. You need to inform
your customers of this fact so they can find their restore CDs or
order replacements from their computer manufacturer. Many
OEM licenses only work with a specific BIOS and CD.

b) No. Microsoft does not support this scenerio.

c) Same is true for all Windows operating systems as mentioned above.

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows XP - Shell/User

Be Smart! Protect Your PC!
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/default.aspx

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

:

| Greets -
|
| I'm wondering if I can do the following legally and physically to make life
| easier
|
| I work for a small shop that does home PC repair. We get a lot of machines
| in for repair, and some need rebuilds. The delimma is when a customer needs
| a PC rebuilt, owns a legal license (sticker on outside of case) but either
| can't find/doesn't have their restore CDs, which happens a LOT. Since I
| have much experience w/ Ghost and sysprep (in the corporate world) I'd like
| to make some kind of ghost image that will prompt for their serial on boot,
| which I know can be done. What I run into is, certain builds don't accept
| certain serial numbers. For example, if I use a general OEM CD to build,
| and put in, say a Gateway serial off their PC, it gets rejected. I have to
| hope that they can find their restore CDs usually. Basically I'm looking
| to cut down turnaround time for the customers, while still doing this all
| right and legal.
|
| What I need to know is:
| a> Can I do what I'd like to do legally? The serial numbers would be the
| ones already owned by that customer who needs the PC rebuilt. So to my
| mind, this should be all legal but if anyone knows any reason why it
| wouldn't be, please tell me and I'll be happy to cease looking into it.
|
| b> Can I make a ghost image that would work across multple OEMs, or will I
| just need to make and sysprep an image for each OEM, i.e. a WinXP for
| Gateway, WinXP for Dell, WinXP for HP (if it's trashed on the HD stored
| version), etc. I don't know enough about how the serials are separated to
| know if it's by OEM, or by some kind of software generation release. Or
| would this even work?
|
| c> Same questions for other OS's.. Windows ME is still prevalent around
| here, as is Win98 first and second edition.. as well as a scattered W95
| machine here and there. Granted W95 and 98, and possibly ME may not be able
| to be prepped how I like, but XP is the going foward
|
| d> Anything I'm missing here?
|
| I appreciate any ideas and info that anyone has!
|
| Thanks,
| Matt
|
|

 

[Matt]

My experience w/ ghost images is that it finds new hardware on boot. So
that's not a concern.
As another person pointed out though, I need to verify I can use Ghost to do
this, whether it needs a license for the machines used to make the image, or
those used to put the image down on.

Pardon the multiple posts.. issues w/ the work machine locking up during
last post, didn't think it went thru

Matt

 

[Matt]

That answers that one - back to the old method

Thanks!
Matt

 

[Morituri-Max]

c) Same is true for all Windows operating systems as mentioned above.

If I understand correctly and the serial numbers are always tied to the CD....
why then are the serials printed seperately from the cd on stickers? Seems kind
of useless since if you lose the cd you might as well not even have the serial..
which is also confusing since you can buy a new license from microsoft without a
cd.

Thanks for any clarification... perhaps the above was for OEMs only?

 

[HW]

Instead of the cost of Ghost - use Partition-Saver.com - FREE - can be made
on bootable CD or DVD - just like Ghost - just not as fast.

 

[Phil]

It's supposed to find new hardware on boot, but that's not the best way to
do it. If the motherboard is different, then a repair install or clean
install is the only way to go to avoid future problems. I wouldn't let ghost
detect new hardware on a clients machine. You'll have it back in the shop
soon and have an uphappy customer. Take the time and do it correctly.

 

[chriske911]

Matt outputte 't volgende:

Greets -

I'm wondering if I can do the following legally and physically to make life
easier

I work for a small shop that does home PC repair. We get a lot of machines
in for repair, and some need rebuilds. The delimma is when a customer needs
a PC rebuilt, owns a legal license (sticker on outside of case) but either
can't find/doesn't have their restore CDs, which happens a LOT. Since I
have much experience w/ Ghost and sysprep (in the corporate world) I'd like
to make some kind of ghost image that will prompt for their serial on boot,
which I know can be done. What I run into is, certain builds don't accept
certain serial numbers. For example, if I use a general OEM CD to build,
and put in, say a Gateway serial off their PC, it gets rejected. I have to
hope that they can find their restore CDs usually. Basically I'm looking
to cut down turnaround time for the customers, while still doing this all
right and legal.

What I need to know is:
a> Can I do what I'd like to do legally? The serial numbers would be the
ones already owned by that customer who needs the PC rebuilt. So to my
mind, this should be all legal but if anyone knows any reason why it
wouldn't be, please tell me and I'll be happy to cease looking into it.

b> Can I make a ghost image that would work across multple OEMs, or will I
just need to make and sysprep an image for each OEM, i.e. a WinXP for
Gateway, WinXP for Dell, WinXP for HP (if it's trashed on the HD stored
version), etc. I don't know enough about how the serials are separated to
know if it's by OEM, or by some kind of software generation release. Or
would this even work?

c> Same questions for other OS's.. Windows ME is still prevalent around
here, as is Win98 first and second edition.. as well as a scattered W95
machine here and there. Granted W95 and 98, and possibly ME may not be able
to be prepped how I like, but XP is the going foward

d> Anything I'm missing here?

I appreciate any ideas and info that anyone has!

Thanks,
Matt

I have had the same problems, especially with the OEM recovery media

since an investigation on several client's pc's I saw that OEM's
sometimes have 3 different keys for the same build
1 is in the unattended file, another on the original sticker and a
third actually in use for the current installation
go figure

I too hate the fact that you cannot use any media at hand and use it
with any official key at hand
but I have a work around for this, you can do this by having a
"standard empty" ISO of a valid WindowsXP CD and copy the i386 of the
recovery media in to it

burn the copy and voila, you have a "normal" windows XP install CD with
slipstreaming of SP2 (or whatever) if you want

for A-brand products you can use the same image over and over again
there will be a mini installation for some changed hardware but mostly
XP recovers quit nicely
(also with win2K and even Win98se I never experienced real issues with
not to different models)

if a key is not valid I use a key that alwoys works for the
installation cd I legally own (corporate) and change it afterwards with
the client's own official sticker key, later on the client is then
required to activate his copy

I also make an image of every new client's installation on his own hard
drive (hidden partition) and another copy on CD wich I keep to myself
for future use

I have had no hassles with this so far, it's quite some administration
to keep up and a huge stack of CD's but once setup it works like a
charm :')
a second re-installation is done within 15 minutes

grtz

 

[D.Currie]

If I understand correctly and the serial numbers are always tied to the
CD.... why then are the serials printed seperately from the cd on
stickers? Seems kind of useless since if you lose the cd you might as
well not even have the serial.. which is also confusing since you can buy
a new license from microsoft without a cd.

Thanks for any clarification... perhaps the above was for OEMs only?

The key isn't tied to a specific CD, but to a specific type of CD. Which all
gets complicated when you're dealing with bios-locked and customized CDs
from the big oems.

 

[D.Currie]

Greets -

I'm wondering if I can do the following legally and physically to make
life
easier

I work for a small shop that does home PC repair. We get a lot of
machines
in for repair, and some need rebuilds. The delimma is when a customer
needs
a PC rebuilt, owns a legal license (sticker on outside of case) but either
can't find/doesn't have their restore CDs, which happens a LOT. Since I
have much experience w/ Ghost and sysprep (in the corporate world) I'd
like
to make some kind of ghost image that will prompt for their serial on
boot,
which I know can be done. What I run into is, certain builds don't accept
certain serial numbers. For example, if I use a general OEM CD to build,
and put in, say a Gateway serial off their PC, it gets rejected. I have
to
hope that they can find their restore CDs usually. Basically I'm looking
to cut down turnaround time for the customers, while still doing this all
right and legal.

What I need to know is:
a> Can I do what I'd like to do legally? The serial numbers would be the
ones already owned by that customer who needs the PC rebuilt. So to my
mind, this should be all legal but if anyone knows any reason why it
wouldn't be, please tell me and I'll be happy to cease looking into it.

b> Can I make a ghost image that would work across multple OEMs, or will I
just need to make and sysprep an image for each OEM, i.e. a WinXP for
Gateway, WinXP for Dell, WinXP for HP (if it's trashed on the HD stored
version), etc. I don't know enough about how the serials are separated to
know if it's by OEM, or by some kind of software generation release. Or
would this even work?

c> Same questions for other OS's.. Windows ME is still prevalent around
here, as is Win98 first and second edition.. as well as a scattered W95
machine here and there. Granted W95 and 98, and possibly ME may not be
able
to be prepped how I like, but XP is the going foward

d> Anything I'm missing here?

I appreciate any ideas and info that anyone has!

Thanks,
Matt

First, you might want to get an official comment from Microsoft before
embarking on anything that might impinge on your employers' business. They'd
be liable for anything you do, and if it gets MSs attention and lawyers come
calling, it could get ugly. Telling them that you got information from a
newsgroup isn't going to hold a lot of weight.

Second, while it might work when you install it, the next problem is going
to come when the user or another shop tries to use the original CD that they
suddenly found and it starts spewing messages about how it's not going to
work or there's an illegal version or whatever. They're going to come back
to your employer's shop and start making all sorts of ruckus.

Third, the OEM software that you're talking about generally includes a lot
of customization that you're not going to have with your generic OEM cd. So
what you reinstall is not going to be what they had originally. Personally,
I'd rather have the generic install, but there might be something on the
original CD that isn't on the generic one that your customer wants or needs.
It would certainly be a shame if you had to reinstall again just because
some custom oem wallpaper is missing.

The next problem is that if the shop gets a reputation for installing XP
without the user have any CDs, that could be a problem as well. I guess that
depends on whether the shop wants that sort of rep or not.

 

[R. McCarty]

In the i386 folder is a file, Setuppi.Ini - It's this file that controls or
defines what type of XP disk & Key are usable. If you open the
file you'll find a definition called PID followed by a 8-Character
string. The first 5 characters indicate what type of disk it is. Such
as Windows XP Professional "Upgrade". The final 3-characters
will control the key type that is acceptable (VLK, Retail).