Using any OEM XP CD to reinstall Windows XP, on a system that has a valid OEM Product key Options

[Eric Legge]

Hi all,

My friend has an ageing Advent desktop PC running Windows XP that only came with a Recovery CD, which he has lost.

The PC has a valid OEM XP Product Key, which I noted in case of an irrecoverable system failure.

If his PC were to experience an unrecoverable failure, would I be able to reinstall XP on his system using my OEM XP CD and his Product Key?

I have looked on the web for an answer unsuccessfully.

[striker]

Being it OEM I don't think so, it's tight to the hardware so you need the CD from its manufacturer.

What I would do is making a complete image of the system and store that elsewhere.
Or buy an OEM XP CD while they last: in that case, when disaster strikes, you can use that new CD to set up the system from scratch. However, you also would need all drivers for the hardware used, and may be that's the biggest problem.

Again my take on it would be imaging as fast as possible.

[Eric Legge]

Thanks, Striker. I'll do that for him.

[lewmur]

Hi all,

My friend has an ageing Advent desktop PC running Windows XP that only came with a Recovery CD, which he has lost.

The PC has a valid OEM XP Product Key, which I noted in case of an irrecoverable system failure.

If his PC were to experience an unrecoverable failure, would I be able to reinstall XP on his system using my OEM XP CD and his Product Key?

I have looked on the web for an answer unsuccessfully.

Imaging is by far your safest bet but I did succeed with an Acer laptop whose HD crashed. Used a generic OEM CD with the Acer's key. MS said I had to get a CD from Acer and Acer said they no longer had them for that model. So as a last resort, I tried the OEM CD and it worked. With the Acer key on the Acer machine, activation went without a hitch.

What won't work is the other way around. You can't take a Dell CD and install on a non-Dell PC.

Another hitch could be trying to use an SP2 CD with an SP1 key.

This post has been edited by lewmur: Feb 14 2009, 11:09 AM

[Tushman]

If his PC were to experience an unrecoverable failure, would I be able to reinstall XP on his system using my OEM XP CD and his Product Key?

I have looked on the web for an answer unsuccessfully.

You can most certaily do so. We used to do this all the time when I worked as a technician at Microcenter.

I'm not a legal expert on this subject matter. All I know is that the company allowed us to do so if the customer could not supply us with the recovery CDs. Only the key is tied to the PC/laptop. The fact that it's a OEM cd has no bearing whatsoever on the ability to re-install XP.

This post has been edited by Tushman: Feb 14 2009, 11:27 PM

[goretsky]

Hello,

Have you checked with the manufacturer to see if a recovery media kit is still available?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

[nlinecomputers]

Hi all,

My friend has an ageing Advent desktop PC running Windows XP that only came with a Recovery CD, which he has lost.

The PC has a valid OEM XP Product Key, which I noted in case of an irrecoverable system failure.

If his PC were to experience an unrecoverable failure, would I be able to reinstall XP on his system using my OEM XP CD and his Product Key?

I have looked on the web for an answer unsuccessfully.

Yes. I do this all the time. Clients never can find disks or worse have PCs that didn't come with disks and are too lazy/clueless/afraid to run the make disks tool that the systems come with.

[patio]

See Here...

[Eric Legge]

Thanks for that information. I have often wondered if doing that is possible, but for some reason never tried to find out.

I have a generic OEM XP Home CD, so I'll try using it if my friend's ageing PC fails, but I'll also image it.

He only uses it to do office work and access the web, so I'll create a slipsteamed CD with SP3 that I can use as well.

[Temmu]

as others have said, so have i done...
the key on the windows sticker on the pc is, er, key to this effort
sorry to chime in so late...

[jeffw_00]

based on some recent experiences - i learned some things.

1) product key is tied to product, and SP1, SP2, and SP3 are different products. SO if the key came with an SP1 disk, it will work only with an SP1 disk.

2) However, unless you "use up" your activations (see below) it should work with any SP1 disk. The IP is in the key, not the disk.

3) If you "use up" your activations (example, I recently got some MoBo at a liquidation sale, and tried putting 3 different ones into my PC, with an install on each one, before I realized they were cr-p), then you have to call microsoft, and they will want the product code off your disk.

4) if I remember correctly from what i've read "use up" has a time function to it as well, so if you upgrade no more often than, say, every 9 mo, you should never run into a problem.

HTH
/j

[zlim]

The IP is in the key, not the disk.

Would this be the IP assigned by my broadband provider? I'm not quite sure how this ties in with activation.
I'm on cable and my IP doesn't change very often but people on dsl can switch off the modem and then get a new IP when they power up. So if you were on dsl and worried about the activation issue, if you switched off the modem, it would be treated as a new install? I'm asking because I'm not sure if I have the gist correct.

As far as activations, I was under the assumption that the slate was wiped every 90 days.
Note: I just installed XP so I'm not up on all the restrictions and since we know MS changes things, what I've been thinking might not even be the same. My last XP install was sometime in 2002 and it was an upgrade from ME on a completely different computer. I disliked it, in part because some of the programs I used had to be removed and others used in place of them, so I wiped it and went back to using ME on that computer.

[jeffw_00]

IP = Intellectual property. My point was that Msoft cares only about proliferation of codes, not discs. the 90 days could be correct.

This post has been edited by jeffw_00: Feb 21 2009, 04:50 PM

[Ed_P]

I used the XP tool from this link yesterday to change a Product Key. I used it with a slipstreamed SP3 CD and an XP SP1 key. It needs a 'net connection but was painless and quick.

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/selfhelp/...structions.aspx

[lewmur]

I used the XP tool from this link yesterday to change a Product Key. I used it with a slipstreamed SP3 CD and an XP SP1 key. It needs a 'net connection but was painless and quick.

http://www.microsoft.com/genuine/selfhelp/...structions.aspx

I don't understand. How can you run this app if you can't get past the point in the install where it asks for the key?

[Ed_P]

That was the problem, the Dell OEM CD didn't ask for a key and installed one that was apparently a part of the CD. Once XP was installed the key needed to be changed to the Product key that came with the notebook.

If the install had asked I wouldn't have needed the utility.

[NathanBN]

You can most certaily do so. We used to do this all the time when I worked as a technician at Microcenter.

I'm not a legal expert on this subject matter. All I know is that the company allowed us to do so if the customer could not supply us with the recovery CDs. Only the key is tied to the PC/laptop. The fact that it's a OEM cd has no bearing whatsoever on the ability to re-install XP.

Yeah i used to do work along the same lines as what you have said and we were always allowed to do Liability Insurance so i presume from the legal side of things it was legit but I'm not 100% sure on that!

This post has been edited by NathanBN: Jan 29 2010, 10:06 AM

[Temmu]

if i was a lawyer, i'd argue that it is the oem image that is licensed, not the particular oem os cd itself, otherwise you would not be able to buy the recovery disk (in case of loss.)

o. hi, nathanbn and welcome!