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Possible to Clone (ghost) XP PRO OEM
hi
Our company has a user base of 35, running Win98/333 Celerons :) Nice. Management have decided to upgrade all hardware (same machine for each user) and buy XP Pro OEM & Office XP OEM. My question is is it possible to create a ghost image of a standard build with OEM OS & Office installed? For financial reasons the company is unlikly to pay for the Corporate/Open Licence track
Thanks for any advice
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Answers
hi there
Have just imaged the first PC. After Sysprep it seems ok with regard to XP Pro - ie I can put in a new Serial number. But office is installed and when I choose Activate it comes up with an Installation ID. Is there anyway to generate a new installation ID as I plan to create 35 pcs from the one image. If they all have the same installation ID for Office this will surely be a problem?
Thanks alot
Rob
A word of caution doing Sysprep with an OEM license of XP: You can only sysprep (with the re-seal and mini-setup options) 3 times before it will stop re-setting the activation timer. This means that you will only be able to make changes to the sysprep-ed image 3 times and have the image be viable for more than 30 days. On the fourth sysprep you will get an error stating the activation timer will no be reset.
If anyone has a workaround for this limitation I would LOVE to hear it!
hi - To make modifications to the ghost image (ie after 30 days when it requests activation before you can login) I just set the Bios Date to around the same time as when the image was created. Not a work around as such but does let you at least work on the image and re-sysprep etc with out the problem of having to activate your 'image' machine
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by: pr1923Posted on 2003-04-29 at 05:49:03ID: 8419558
Yes it is possible. You would need to use ghost 7.5 or higher. I recommend ghosting the drives before you activate them so that when it comes time for activation you can choose activate by phone. Change product key and put in the correct key for each machine. Then you should be able to activate over the phone.
If you need more info or help on this let me know I just finished doing this for 6 computers that we built.