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microsoft.public.vb.general.discussion

XP Home oem ?

scbs29

8/21/2011 4:38:00 PM

Hello all
my wife has a laptop with xp home installed. It was bought used and
has no reinstall disks. I have downloaded the requisite drivers and am
now considering getting a new cd of xp home and reinstalling the whole
system.
The XP home installed is legit and the laptop has the MS serial no
forXP home on the case.
I assume I am correct in assuming that I cannot install XP Pro using
the serial no on the laptop.
If I buy a cd of XP Home, however, oem or whatever, am I right in
thinking that I can install it using the cd key on the laptop and it
will then be legit ?
TIA

remove fred before emailing
Registered Linux User 490858
24 Answers

Mayayana

8/21/2011 5:28:00 PM

0

First: For any further questions you should ask in

microsoft.public.windowsxp.general

This group is for VB programming. Your question has nothing
to do with VB programming. But since you're here and it's
Sunday...see below.

-- | Hello all
| my wife has a laptop with xp home installed. It was bought used and
| has no reinstall disks. I have downloaded the requisite drivers and am
| now considering getting a new cd of xp home and reinstalling the whole
| system.
| The XP home installed is legit and the laptop has the MS serial no
| forXP home on the case.
| I assume I am correct in assuming that I cannot install XP Pro using
| the serial no on the laptop.

Correct.

| If I buy a cd of XP Home, however, oem or whatever, am I right in
| thinking that I can install it using the cd key on the laptop and it
| will then be legit ?

The product key on the laptop goes with it. It's irrelevant
unless you are asked for it when doing a restore. (See below.
A restore is not the same as System Restore.)

If you buy a new CD (buycheapsoftware.com has them
for $120) it will have a new product key and will have to
be activated. You can then never install again to another
PC from that new CD. The whole point of the product
key is to tie one copy of Windows to one PC.

Before you possibly waste the money, see if there might
be a Restore partition. Most PCs/laptops have a backup
copy of the OS. (They save money by not giving you an
actual CD.) The backup is on another partition, which may
or may not be visible. Typically you boot into the restorer
by pressing F-something at boot. It then puts a fresh copy
of windows onto the PC.

You can check on the details by doing a search for something
like the model number of your laptop plus "restore" and "partition".

This all assumes that the current OS is having problems.
Otherwise you're just wasting money. For $40 you could
buy BootIt BM and make disk images of the current OS to
have if there are ever problems in the future.

argusy

8/22/2011 12:52:00 AM

0

<snip>
> If you buy a new CD (buycheapsoftware.com has them
> for $120) it will have a new product key and will have to
> be activated. You can then never install again to another
> PC from that new CD. The whole point of the product
> key is to tie one copy of Windows to one PC.
>
<snip>

Don't ever say "never" <grin>

So how come I have been able to re-install from the same CD to one of my PCs
which has had motherboard upgrades twice?

(A change of motherboard, btw, effectively makes it different computer).

It is _MY_ CD, bought and paid for by me. (Yeah, I know I didn't 'buy' the OS).
I have had no problems whatever with Microsoft when activating what would appear
to be three different PC installations with the same CD and product key.

Also, I have two other PCs, both of which have had re-installations (and not
from the one CD)

B37JF... for the HP (ex work - got it rather cheap)
P44XR.... and P4G82... are for my own built PCs.

(I'm an electronics tech - first computer I ever bought was a Commodore 64, then
a Spectravideo, and then building my own since Big Blue's XT, twenty five years
ago)

When I upgrade (motherboard/HDD usually), I prefer a clean install, rather than
"upgrade" from the CD. I used to get all sorts of problems
(video/inputs/outputs/memory/whatever) when I did that.

From my experience, I think it may have more to do with WHO is registering the
same product key, and not with "one PC, one product key"

So, Sorry, Mayayana, I have to disagree with you on this.

I'll qualify that - I've never had Vista, and because my PC at work now has W7,
then I may have to match it and upgrade one of my PCs from XP Pro. These two
OS's COULD be "One PC, one install". I'll find out - one day

Graham

Mayayana

8/22/2011 1:36:00 AM

0

| So how come I have been able to re-install from the same CD to one of my
PCs
| which has had motherboard upgrades twice?
|

Interesting. I've never tried that. Are you sure you don't
have XP Full? (I think if you have Pro that axtually only comes
as Full.) The OEM version is supposed to install once,
and identify a different board as a different PC.
The Full version is licensed to install any number of times
(but only to one machine at a time). Typically the OEM
version is $100+ while the Full version is closer to $200,
and Pro (full) is more like $280.

If you have a Full version then you didn't get away with
anything. You paid about $100 for the "privilege" of getting
what you paid for.

scbs29

8/22/2011 11:01:00 AM

0

On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:37:48 +0100, scbs29 <scbs29@fred.talktalk.net>
wrote:

>Hello all
>my wife has a laptop with xp home installed. It was bought used and
>has no reinstall disks. I have downloaded the requisite drivers and am
>now considering getting a new cd of xp home and reinstalling the whole
>system.
>The XP home installed is legit and the laptop has the MS serial no
>forXP home on the case.
>I assume I am correct in assuming that I cannot install XP Pro using
>the serial no on the laptop.
>If I buy a cd of XP Home, however, oem or whatever, am I right in
>thinking that I can install it using the cd key on the laptop and it
>will then be legit ?
>TIA
>
>remove fred before emailing
>Registered Linux User 490858


Please accept my apologies for posting in the wrong newsgroup.
I can only put this down to advanced years and not reading the ng name
correctly.
I will now go and sit in a corner until my sins are expiated.

remove fred before emailing
Registered Linux User 490858

ralph

8/22/2011 4:38:00 PM

0

On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:00:53 +0100, scbs29 <scbs29@fred.talktalk.net>
wrote:

>On Sun, 21 Aug 2011 17:37:48 +0100, scbs29 <scbs29@fred.talktalk.net>
>wrote:
>
>>Hello all
>>my wife has a laptop with xp home installed. It was bought used and
>>has no reinstall disks. I have downloaded the requisite drivers and am
>>now considering getting a new cd of xp home and reinstalling the whole
>>system.
>>The XP home installed is legit and the laptop has the MS serial no
>>forXP home on the case.
>>I assume I am correct in assuming that I cannot install XP Pro using
>>the serial no on the laptop.
>>If I buy a cd of XP Home, however, oem or whatever, am I right in
>>thinking that I can install it using the cd key on the laptop and it
>>will then be legit ?
>>TIA
>>
>>remove fred before emailing
>>Registered Linux User 490858
>
>
>Please accept my apologies for posting in the wrong newsgroup.
>I can only put this down to advanced years and not reading the ng name
>correctly.
>I will now go and sit in a corner until my sins are expiated.
>

Ha, don't apologize - you were NOT being chastized. Mayayana was
simply helping by suggesting where you could get better help.

-ralph

Karl E. Peterson

8/22/2011 5:48:00 PM

0

It happens that Mayayana formulated :
>> So how come I have been able to re-install from the same CD to one of my
>> PCs which has had motherboard upgrades twice?
>>
>
> Interesting. I've never tried that. Are you sure you don't
> have XP Full? (I think if you have Pro that axtually only comes
> as Full.) The OEM version is supposed to install once,
> and identify a different board as a different PC.
> The Full version is licensed to install any number of times
> (but only to one machine at a time). Typically the OEM
> version is $100+ while the Full version is closer to $200,
> and Pro (full) is more like $280.
>
> If you have a Full version then you didn't get away with
> anything. You paid about $100 for the "privilege" of getting
> what you paid for.

I thought OEM distros were BIOS-locked? IOW, you couldn't install HP
bits on a Dell, or vice-versa.

--
..NET: It's About Trust!
http://vfre...

Tim Rude

8/22/2011 6:15:00 PM

0

"Karl E. Peterson" <karl@exmvps.org> wrote in message
news:j2u4p5$b3p$1@dont-email.me...
>
> I thought OEM distros were BIOS-locked? IOW, you couldn't install HP bits
> on a Dell, or vice-versa.
>

It's been my experience that an OEM CD from any brand works fine on
anything. There might be some brand-specific stuff on the CD (in an OEM
folder) that gets installed (such as a Dell CD usually creates a Dell
folder) but the Windows stuff is all the same.

I've installed XP hundreds of times on every brand you can imagine, using
whatever OEM CD was handy at the moment. As long as there's a valid COA
sticker on the machine, it doesn't really matter what CD you use.

Karl E. Peterson

8/22/2011 7:50:00 PM

0

It happens that Tim Rude formulated :
> "Karl E. Peterson" <karl@exmvps.org> wrote...
>>
>> I thought OEM distros were BIOS-locked? IOW, you couldn't install HP bits
>> on a Dell, or vice-versa.
>>
>
> It's been my experience that an OEM CD from any brand works fine on anything.
> There might be some brand-specific stuff on the CD (in an OEM folder) that
> gets installed (such as a Dell CD usually creates a Dell folder) but the
> Windows stuff is all the same.
>
> I've installed XP hundreds of times on every brand you can imagine, using
> whatever OEM CD was handy at the moment. As long as there's a valid COA
> sticker on the machine, it doesn't really matter what CD you use.

That's good to know! Not sure where I got that notion of it checking
the BIOS. Thanks...

--
..NET: It's About Trust!
http://vfre...

Tony Toews

8/22/2011 10:21:00 PM

0

On Mon, 22 Aug 2011 12:00:53 +0100, scbs29 <scbs29@fred.talktalk.net>
wrote:

>I will now go and sit in a corner until my sins are expiated.

Hehehe. Here, have some wine while you're sitting.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C...

Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Tony's Main MS Access pages - http://www.granite.ab.ca/ac...
Tony's Microsoft Access Blog - http://msmvps.com/blo...
For a convenient utility to keep your users FEs and other files
updated see http://www.autofeup...

Mayayana

8/23/2011 12:09:00 AM

0

| That's good to know! Not sure where I got that notion of it checking
| the BIOS. Thanks...
|

It's two different things. There's pre-installed OEM, which is
supposed to be BIOS-locked. Dell, HP, etc. supposedly put
code in the BIOS and the install itself is nothing more than a
disk image. Those systems don't have to be activated. I've
never tried taking a Dell or HP disk image and putting it onto
another PC, but in theory it's not possible.

What we were talking about is buying an OEM CD. By
definition that can only be installed to one PC and gets
no MS support. It will install to any PC, but once it's been
activated it will complain if the motherboard is changed
and, in theory, it won't be able to re-activate. It's locked
to a single motherboard.

So there's a distinction there between using a CD to install
Windows and actually activating the install. An OEM CD
can be used any number of times, but [in theory] if you
install to a second PC and use the same product key it won't
activate because that activation has already been used.

Another wrinkle: I built a PC last week and got a an OEM
CD that's actually called "Windows for refurbished PCs".
Apparently MS is too embarassed to keep selling OEM
versions for a Windows they want dead, but they also don't
want to pass up the money. So they define OEM CDs now
as being for refurbished PCs. (In other words: "No one in
their right mind would buy XP at this point, so you must
be needing a new copy of Windows for your old PC that
you put a new motherboard into."

Then there's the full version CD, which is licensed to a person
rather than a "motherboard being". That can be moved any
number of times and I think it can be sold once.

And of course, all this is not even touching on the issues
of upgrade CDs or the legal tenability of this licensing scheme
altogether. :)