FuzzButt Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 Story goes like this,Friend brings his sisters Dell 4100 tower over my house with serious issues. Ok a few minutes later I know it needs a new hard drive. Not a big deal. Got a new drive for $70. Put it in and started installing Windoes XP Home on it. There is a Product ID tag on the side of the machine just like there is supposed to be. Well I tried installing WindowsXP Home (upgrade) and the key is not valid. Alright I'll start the OEM XP Home I have. No luck Invalid Key. Final try is my personal copy of WinXP Home Retail. Still no luck. Why are things so difficult for someone trying to do the right thing? This PC has a license. It should be easy to just install any copy of windows so far as the license is correct for what ever you are doing. Clean install is what I want to do. A recovery CD from her is what I need and will get later this week but it is less than ideal when it is 3 years old. So many things are different. I'd like to start over and fresh with XP Home SP2 and build from there.Good news is I installed the XP Home Upgrade from my Wife's PC and the PC does work and is stable. I deleted it and I guess I'll wait for the owner to get me her correct software. :bangin:By the way I do understand the way the Licenses are for the different installations but I think it should be simplified. As long as you ahve a valid key any install CD should at least get windows installed so you can register and activate it.You get this feeling that all this does is keep the honest users honest. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted July 10, 2006 Share Posted July 10, 2006 From Ed Bott's Microsoft Licensing Quiz as linked from here: http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?showtopic=15758 9. If you reinstall your original copy of Windows XP on a computer from a large system maker (Dell, Gateway, Sony, etc.), you have to enter the product key found on the sticker attached to the side of the PC’s case. [*] True or False?9. False. On a computer manufactured by a Royalty OEM [Dell, HP, etc] that uses SLP (see the answer to question 7), the product key found on the sticker attached to the side of the PC is not used. If you reinstall Windows using the original SLP CD, no activation is required. If you try to install using a different OEM CD and the key from the sticker on the PC case, it will be rejected and you’ll have to phone in for activation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rons Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 From Ed Bott's Microsoft Licensing Quiz as linked from here: http://forums.scotsnewsletter.com/index.php?showtopic=15758 Interesting but frustrating for FuzzButt. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzButt Posted July 11, 2006 Author Share Posted July 11, 2006 Ya I read that. I get to wait and pound my head on my desk for a few day's. It is just silly that the OEM version that the rest of us can purchase and the "Royality OEM" CD's are not the same. I'm going to be pissed if I have to eat the $25 that is left of my profits to go out and buy a $125 copy of XP Home cause the user no longer has an installable copy of software that she already should own and have a full copy of. While I am in rant mode. I believe that there needs to be a better mentality at the system vendors in the way of easy or input free backup/cloneing utilities built-in to pc's they push out the door. I can't count how many times I have heard or know of people loosing it all cause they did not know that was needed or even that something like that can happen. Worst yet is some vendors a while back shipped PC's with RAID enabled and installed it all on striped drives that were less than reliable. On comes a crash and there goes all the data.System restore is a joke especially in a system that has one hard drive. I'm glad I was able to pull 700MB off this customers 40GB WD before CRC errors and bad sectors claimed the rest of the disk. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epp_b Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 (edited) It is just silly that the OEM version that the rest of us can purchase and the "Royality OEM" CD's are not the same. I'm going to be pissed if I have to eat the $25 that is left of my profits to go out and buy a $125 copy of XP Home cause the user no longer has an installable copy of software that she already should own and have a full copy of.While I am in rant mode. I believe that there needs to be a better mentality at the system vendors in the way of easy or input free backup/cloneing utilities built-in to pc's they push out the door. I can't count how many times I have heard or know of people loosing it all cause they did not know that was needed or even that something like that can happen. Worst yet is some vendors a while back shipped PC's with RAID enabled and installed it all on striped drives that were less than reliable. On comes a crash and there goes all the data.System restore is a joke especially in a system that has one hard drive. I'm glad I was able to pull 700MB off this customers 40GB WD before CRC errors and bad sectors claimed the rest of the disk.I hear ya, FuzzButt, and you're absoutely right. Software licensing has gotten out of hand. I mean, I don't mind if I have to enter a registration key for a few programs when I perform or restore a backup (this was the case for me a while ago) as long as those keys continue to work and/or are easily obtainable without any of the ridiculous rigamarol you've described.It has become especially bad with Microsoft. You pay for their product, and then they make you jump through hoops just to get it working with slightly different configurations than the licensing system in the software can handle (NO ONE should have to pay again for the same software just because they change some hardware). They need to stop with these ridiculous flaming hoops and treat customers like customers, not criminals.This makes me furious just thinking about it... Edited July 11, 2006 by epp_b Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Keegan Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 but you say it didn't work with the oem cd? as this is a oem license it should workyou will have to phone in to activate it though Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peachy Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 What Keegan says is correct. With these OEM product keys from Dell, HP, etc. you need to phone Microsoft, tell them the number from your COA (the sticker on the computer) and then they give you the 25 character activation key. You just can't do it automatically. However, that COA sticker number is tied to that hardware. If you buy a new computer, especially a custome-built one you would have to buy another license for the new computer. The only transferrable Microsoft Windows licenses are retail versions, with Product Activation in tow, of course. Even if you have a legitimate OEM COA license from a small OEM vendor, you still cannot transfer that license to a new computer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest LilBambi Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 Which totally stinks of course. ;)When I buy a computer with an OS, I insist it say bought .. not be tied to hardware!What do they think they are? TiVO or Dish Network or DirecTV?That's what it seems like they are going for.Eventually when they get all the buyers of OEM computers used to it, which are a majority of purchasers ... they will likely start doing it even with Retail versions -- where they tie it/marry it to the first computer it's installed on. Like it's totally normal...sigh... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epp_b Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 When I buy a computer with an OS, I insist it say bought .. not be tied to hardware!Point well made! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzButt Posted July 11, 2006 Author Share Posted July 11, 2006 ANyone called MS lately? When you call it is a computer based IVR system. You read your digits and it reads back the activation code. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
epp_b Posted July 11, 2006 Share Posted July 11, 2006 ANyone called MS lately? When you call it is a computer based IVR system. You read your digits and it reads back the activation code.I called them a little while ago to reactivate and got that IVR system you describe ... I hate it. It makes so much more sense just to punch it in using the numbers on the touchtone phone because it eliminates system error (user error is always a factor regardless of the system), it's more convenient, and it's faster. It doesn't even work anyway, it put me through to an operator. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FuzzButt Posted July 15, 2006 Author Share Posted July 15, 2006 Update on issue,With the Dell Supplied CD I was easily able to install Windows XP Home 2002 version. Never asked for the key. I installed a few other Apps. First was AVG instead of an outdated Norton. SP2 patched and a bunch more updates. It's amazing not including SP2, which in the network for is 250+MB, there are some 120+ MB of updates for this PC. Good thing I am on DSL. I can see why many people do not update.It's almost done after 4 hours of tweaking. I need to run Diskeeper and I'll be done. Funny even though it is a 1.6GHz P4 with 400 FSB and 256MB Ram it is not too shabby on the performance. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cluttermagnet Posted July 19, 2006 Share Posted July 19, 2006 Sigh...This is why I don't own a copy of XP, and will never own Vista. My original sense of outrage, hailing back to the release of XP, is 100 percent intact today.Win98SE until my computers sink to the bottom and can't be refloated, then Linux. But I'll miss all the wonderful and varied software written for Windoze... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlim Posted July 19, 2006 Share Posted July 19, 2006 (edited) Cluttermagnet, I'm with you. I won't surf on 98SE and ME any longer but I'll still use what I like in those. I'll surf on 2K until MS doesn't support it any longer then totally linux. I may be very narrow-visioned but I seem to have more than enough programs to do what I need to on all my computers EXCEPT maybe view DVDs. I put a dvd that I rented in the one notebook yesterday and could not view it with the DVD player that came with it. Fortunately I have MediaPlayerClassic and the k-lite codecs pack. I fired that up and could watch the movie. I suspect that after the greedy Hollywood people get done fooling around with the copy-schemes, I may not be able to view movies on my old computers. When that happens, I'll stop renting movies and go back to doing more book reading. Edited July 19, 2006 by zlim Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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