Shenan Stanley <newshelper@gmail.com> wrote:
> nhughesatl wrote:
>> You'll need a volume license for that.. Since they are all
>> independant right now you need to have each individual set of
>> numbers tied to each machine. Otherwise yoru audit group will
>> frown on that. After you get that you can ghost one base image and
>> ghostcast it to all the other machines with no issue.
>
> Jeff Grossman wrote:
>> One more quick question. If I was doing this with either Windows
>> 2000 or Windows 98, would I have been able to do what I wanted and
>> after I installed the ghosted image, run a bat file to change the
>> product key back to the original for that machine? I imagine
>> because Windows XP requires product activation, and the product key
>> is assigned to that one particular machine, it is not possible.
>
> You could do it with Windows XP that way as well - sort of.
> (Win9X/ME/2K just didn't have activation - but changing the installation key
> before activation isn't that hard.)
> Not as easily - perhaps not even automated - but maybe - I have never tried.
>
> But if you used something like:
>
> http://unattended.sourceforge.net/ (network)
> or
> http://unattended.msfn.org/ (cd/dvd)
>
> with whatever media you wanted, then you could likely do what you are
> desiring.. Using the CVS method from the first place might allow you to
> enter different keys for the same OEM media - and thus automate the entire
> thing - and it is a lot more flexible (albeit slower) than an imaging
> process.
>
> You would be better off with a volume license - of that there is no doubt.
> =)
>
Thank you for that information. I will take a look at it and see if it
will work for my objective. Yes, I know the volumne license method
would have been better. But, all of the equipment is already purchased
and has arrived. A little late now to order the machines with no
operating system. For future use, if I ever do a project like this
again, I will make sure to purchase the machines with no os so I can
just copy the image over to every machine.

Jeff