jhoppe Posted June 25, 2008 Share Posted June 25, 2008 (edited) Forgive me if I am posting what is already here, but I have been searching the forums (and google!) to find an answer to this question.I have an OEM XP Home CD and when a client comes to me with a Dell PC or an HP PC, etc. with XP Home loaded onto it, but needs it to be rebuilt, how would I be able to make a copy of my XP Home OEM CD, and make it into a bootable Dell XP Home OEM CD, that WILL prompt and accept the key on the COA... I've read all of the 'you have to modify the pid value, blah blah', but is that the way to correctly do this? Edited June 25, 2008 by jhoppe Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JedMeister Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 As far as I know, and as long as the CD you have is a full OEM XP Home CD (ie not been played with by Dell, HP or anyone else) AND they have a OEM XP Home COA - you should be able to just use your CD with their serial number (off the COA). It should do a clean install fine.Having said that I'm guessing that you've tried and it didn't work. Have you contacted MS? There should be no reason why you can't do this. My understanding is that the OEM license applies to the machine and the install medium is irrelevant - ie as long as it is the correct OS version for the serial number, it should work. I have successfully Installed XP Pro from alternative CD onto a Dell laptop, using the Dell's original serial and it worked fine - perhaps there is some limitation with Home version? Also that Dell was a few years old, so maybe that is a newer limitation bought in by laptop manufacturers to make you install all their extra crapware? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jhoppe Posted June 26, 2008 Author Share Posted June 26, 2008 Thanks for the reply! I've run into this a few times...Sony and Compaq to be exact. Supposedly, in one of the i386 files, the pid is going to reflect the number given to Dell, HP, etc. and a regular OEM would not work... Am I missing something???? I only WISH my OEM media worked EVERY time! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JedMeister Posted June 26, 2008 Share Posted June 26, 2008 (edited) I don't really know about this. As I said my only experience doing this sort of thing worked fine. So it must either be something in the laptop BIOS that triggers it or something from MS.When you say it doesn't work, is it that it just won't accept the serial at all, or will it not activate once installed or what? The only time I have ever come across adjusting PIDs was a dodgey hack that you used to be able to do to Windows 2000 (and that's all I'm saying on that matter cause I don't want to be banned from this forum!)Just for the record, there are two flavours of OEM. One is the type supplied to large scale system builders such as Dell, HP, Compaq etc (I will call this Vendor OEM). And the other is the OEM smaller system builders, back yarders and owner builders can buy off the shelf, this second type is often refered to as Full OEM (and that's what I'll call it). My understanding is that Vendor OEM is locked to hardware using some sort of BIOS check, etc. Full OEM should install on any hardware - but you must do a full clean install onto a formatted HDD. With any OEM version, you can not repair, upgrade or any of the other fancy options available to a Retail (ie non-OEM) version of XP. I have a suspicion that the version you have is indeed the first (ie one supplied to a large manufacturer). If that's the case then I don't think that you can legally do what you want with yours. You need a Full OEM version. I could be wrong but my understanding is that you can use a Full OEM version to install on hardware such as Dell etc, but you can't use a Vendor OEM version on any other hardware than that which it was sold with (or same/similar model). Edited June 26, 2008 by JedMeister Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jr2 Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 (edited) For this purpose, wouldn't it be legal to acquire (Bittorrent?) a copy of the manufacturer's OEM disc, as long as the COA for the machine is legit? I've seen them out there on torrent sites. And, if the installation medium isn't relevant, it should work, and legally, no?EDIT: Uummm, I just remembered, if you do this (torrent), be sure your share ratio doesn't go above 1.000 (at least not by much), or you're "distributing", I'm sure. Now, don't stop seeding before you reach that amount, or you're "leeching" and hurting the torrent. If this is legal in the first place. Edited July 1, 2008 by jr2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kelsenellenelvian Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 (edited) Downloading and redistributing any Microsoft programs\apps online is illegal unless you are getting them straight from the distributer. So in effect downloading any os or oem disk is illegal especially from torrents and for buisiness purposes.However on the good side there is another way AFAIK.Look here = http://www.msfn.org/board/Multi-Manufactur...ion-t71016.html Edited July 1, 2008 by Kelsenellenelvian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JedMeister Posted July 1, 2008 Share Posted July 1, 2008 Nice work Kelsenellenelvian! @jr2 - even if it were legal to download in this way (which is news to me too), uploading even one byte is considered distributing (well has been in the cases the RIAA have pursued). So that's a no go anyway! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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