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Registered Member #72
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 08:29AM
Location: UK St. Albans
Posts: 1659
This is not a question of legaility, but of convenience. Can I use the same physical XP installation disc on more than one machine? Are the discs identical, and it's the license number / CPU ID combination that microshaft are interested in. Or are they keyed to the license they came with, and will choke if they don't see their own license number?
I have a laptop with a preinstalled XP Home that I want to wipe and rebuild. It has the original license number stuck on the case, but no installation disc. I could follow instructions to create a CD from files on the machine, but that will take ages, and I also have a sneaking doubt about the quality of the installation itself - part of the reason for wanting to rebuild it. However, I also have a pristine XP Home SP3 OEM disc for another PC. Can I simply use the this disc to install XP to the laptop, and then continue with the laptop's existing license number, or is that going to run me into complications?
Registered Member #30
Joined: Fri Feb 03 2006, 10:52AM
Location: Glasgow, Scotland
Posts: 6706
The discs are neither unique nor common. They come in at least five different flavours: Home, Professional, Home OEM, Professional OEM, and "Corporate". I put this in quotes because it isn't labelled Corporate, it is still called Professional.
Now, to start with, the license numbers can't be mixed between flavours. Also, MS may have changed the keys between batches of CDs in an effort to curb the worst excesses of piracy.
To add insult to injury, all the flavours except "Corporate" have product activation. You have 30 days after installation to do this: it goes online and verifies the license number that you entered against Microsoft's servers. This prevents you activating multiple installations with the same license number, amongst other things. On the OEM flavours, it will also force reactivation if you upgrade too many components.
The product activation routines are in Winlogon.exe. If it is giving you grief, you can use Process Explorer to replace it with a copy that has the routines patched out. Not that I would have such a thing, me hearties!
Edit: I forgot to mention that some OEM install CDs are locked to a key in the BIOS of the machine they came with.
Registered Member #1563
Joined: Wed Jun 25 2008, 03:55AM
Location: Wimer Oregon, Wewt for sticks!
Posts: 30
As Steve said, the discs are locked to a set of keys specific to the flavour of the distribution. The one printed on the laptop being a "Code of Authenticity" (read: OEM Key) and not a standard product code or activation key. You may not have an issue, assuming your OEM copy is a generic OEM and not manufacturer specific.
Should you want to check or make your own, the install uses a file located on disc in the I386 directory called "setupp.ini" (yes, two P's). Within this file is an entry PID and a code in the format of xxxx-yyy or something of that nature that indicates what range of Keys are valid to proceed with install.
I believe you could check on the laptop, within that same directory, what PID it used and substitute it for the one on disc. Burn your own bootable CD and off you go.
This will not get you by activation, which will likely fail, but I'm fairly certain I've called the automated activation line at that point and it just issued me a new key.
P.S. Should you not be able to find your laptops PID, the Lunarsoft wiki has the Windows XP PIDs documented.
Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
There is another 'flavour' that I use, the 'student' version.
My copy is an 'upgrade version', when I 'wipe' (read 're-format') my hard drive I install windows 98 first, then install the XP upgrade, along with the service packs.
I've never had any problems and I've been doing this for nearly ten years (it allows me to 're-evaluate' trial versions of pograms that stop working after 30 days ) (my OS is on a separate drive to the rest of my software)
As I assume you already have a license to use XP (paid for when you bought your latop), I can't see a problem with sending you copies, as long as you don't allow them to be installed on a machine which isn't already licensed to use XP
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are XP install discs unique, or common?
) (my OS is on a separate drive to the rest of my software)