tbourner Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 I need to legitimately put XP on a machine at work, someone suggested copying it from my desk PC (not sure why this is the easiest option, I'm going to go ask in a min), but is it even possible? They said they'd get me another license for it but isn't it keyed into the CD that it's loaded from? So if I ghosted it (for example) then the license they buy won't match the software on the PC? The other option is to bring my legitimate XP CD from home, but will this have the same issues when I try to load (obviously won't use the key I got with my copy)? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian W Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 it does sometimes work to use a different CD and product key i think. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DamanC Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 The corperate key is your friend Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 Ghosting to new hardware will require reactivation (if you can get it to boot, you'll have issues with controller drivers - not going into that here) There are different types of license. OEM, retail and corporate. The keys are different for each, so you can't just grab any CD. What license do you have? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted October 26, 2006 Author Share Posted October 26, 2006 Not sure, I don't deal with it I've just been told by another Engineer that I could copy it across. My version is XP home so guessing I won't be using that then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ian W Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 Ghosting to new hardware will require reactivation (if you can get it to boot, you'll have issues with controller drivers - not going into that here) There are different types of license. OEM, retail and corporate. The keys are different for each, so you can't just grab any CD. What license do you have? hence i said 'sometimes' but is it not correct that you could use a retail disc with the product key that came with a different disc? i.e. sometimes it will work? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 Is the license a sticker on the PC? - if so it's likely OEM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 but is it not correct that you could use a retail disc with the product key that came with a different disc? i.e. sometimes it will work? I believe some of the very first disks may have been cross compatible. Not sure. Strictly speaking the retail, corp and OEM discs are different. In Vista it's just one disc for all versions of the OS to simplify this. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tbourner Posted October 26, 2006 Author Share Posted October 26, 2006 The system on my desk PC is OEM, not sure if they'd buy the similar license or something else (probably the cheapest!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 The system on my desk PC is OEM, not sure if they'd buy the similar license or something else (probably the cheapest!). Ah, but you can only buy an OEM license pre-installed on a brand new PC. Used to be you could supply it with a bit of hardware, but they tightened the OEM licensing rules down. If the machine is unlicensed they'll need to buy retail unless they have an MS Open licensing agreement Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
carl0s Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 You can legitimise any Windows XP with a valid key. e.g., you can install the Corporate, VLK, dodgy XP Pro, and then later turn it into a legal OEM version with a legit OEM key. The same applies to Home edition. To get around upgrade issues, e.g. Home Edition OEM can't be used to upgrade Win9x/Me machines, I would use a dodgy retail edition of XP Home, to do the upgrade, and then use this tool to turn that into a legit OEM version afterwards. The tool is here: http://www2.css-networks.com/KeyUpdateTool.exe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pabs Posted October 26, 2006 Share Posted October 26, 2006 Yep - OEM is one of those things that bugs me. Microsoft's take on it - its preinstalled - if the hardware in that PC significantly changes (ie new motherboard) then you'll need a new license of XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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